


Ivory Tower

by bipalium



Series: Dangerous [2]
Category: Depeche Mode
Genre: Control Issues, Drug Abuse, Dubious Consent, Excessive Drinking, Light BDSM, M/M, Psychological Drama, Secret Relationship, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2019-08-22 06:37:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 43,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16592738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bipalium/pseuds/bipalium
Summary: Pain. The pain Martin felt from their bound - so strange as if a silent agreement between two condemned criminals to run away at the face of the scaffold, but profound and necessary like oxygen - this pain was beginning to give him a special sort of masochistic pleasure.





	1. Let me show you the world in my eyes

Your neck is like an ivory tower.

Song of Solomon (7:4)

 

 

“And that's kind of how it happened.”

Andy ran a hand across his face, shaking his head and hiding a smile.

“Jesus Christ, finally.”

Martin took a sip of his tea, wistful. His friend patted his shoulder.

From the terrace where they’d been sitting at could be seen the serene coastline. The spring in Livorno was rainy but today the sun gently warmed the sand and palm trees were swaying under the blow of calm, salty breeze. It pleasantly touched his skin and Martin lowered his eyelids, enjoying this fresh caress.

Just two hundred kilometres away, a four-hour train ride, Alan was working hard in the sultry humidity of Milanese studio. Acrimony hadn’t left his face when a week ago he asked the blokes to get the fuck out and stop distracting him. Without second thought, Martin and Andy had hovered at the opened Italy guide book.

“There’s a nice beach.” Andy pointed his finger to a red dot on the map. “It’s a small resort town, shall we go?”

Just an hour later they were jolting in a train and Martin was silently observing how outside the window the yellow fields were changing into scarce woods.

The hotel owner had come out to greet them, bowing and sheepishly asking them to sign a plate at the reception. Their room was spacey, with a tall window, soft rugs and milky curtains.

Martin set the cup onto the coffee table and made his leave into the room. Taking a weighty ebonite receiver, for several moments he was sitting without movement before finally dialing the number.

“Logic speaking,”  Flood’s voice answered after a series of long beeps.

“Hiya, mate.” Martin smiled at the phone. “Is Alan there?”

“Ehh... yeah, not in a good mood though. Should I call him?”

“Sure.”

There was rustle of moving feet on the background, followed by a cut guitar riff and Wilder’s annoyed shout. Martin’s breath hitched.

“What’s it,” he barked into the receiver. A swish of a lighter’s wheel.

“Morning, Al.”

“Ah, it’s you.” Even though Alan tried to sound laidback, something in his tone gave away carefully concealed warmth. Martin knew he was smiling. “Of course, for such slackers as you and Fletch eleven o'clock is still morning, but mind you that I've been awake since five and haven't even had my coffee.”

“Oh, poor, poor you,” retorted Martin. “Listen, I’ve been thinking about using a different sample in _World in my eyes_. I don’t like how the current one blends with Dave’s voice.”

A heavy sigh.

“You know, when I asked the two of you to get out of my face I was hoping that you’d sod off with your valuable advice. I’ll figure it out, all right? It’s coming out just fine,” he added softer. And lowered his voice: “How’s the water?”

“Cold.”

“Very informative, Gore.”

They kept silence for a while but Martin didn’t want to hang up yet. Alan seemed to share his sentiment.

“It’s beautiful.” Martin scratched a patch of dirt from the phone wire. “Could you maybe join us?”

“Mhm... I don’t know.” His voice became sad. “I’ve got my hands full and was hoping to get some sleep at the weekend. But I would like to,” he added with a tender note.

Martin bit his lip. So many words were on his mind, descriptions of the picturesque Ligurian promenade, its palm trees permeated with purple rays of the sunset, lazy cats basking on stones, one of them having accepted leftovers of Fletch’s sandwich with unbothered grace. Instead of all that, Martin inhaled and said with a melancholic smile:

“All right. Good luck.”

After saying goodbye Martin returned to the living room, where Andy had been anticipating him with a towel hovering on his bare shoulders.  

There were plenty of people on the beach; children’s chirpy voices and wash of the waves cradled Martin as he was drinking juice under a shield of wide umbrella. He had always been fascinated by the view of an open stretch of water, its tameless force full of life and at the same time ever-present waft of death. He tried to focus of the blurry horizon line, humid tenderness of the wind, listening to its song and hoping that an epiphany would hit him right now like madness. But it wasn’t coming and he closed his eyes, lowering to the lounge and shifting his hat to his face.

That fateful day when his conflict with Alan had reached its climax they stayed the night in the studio. Work was out of question for they couldn’t take their eyes away from each other. Alan was stroking his hand and his eyes were filled with such admiration like of one who would be looking at the statue of Virgin Mary. But they weren’t free from strained pain either.

They didn’t talk, just lay down the couch in silence, hands wandering under the shirts, hot mouths gasping for air. Alan’s knee slid between his legs, sending sweet impulses all over his body. Martin ground against his thigh, clasping his neck with his hands and breathing into his open mouth. Alan’s eyes shone with silver in the dim moonlight, and in the dark his touches were so palpable as if he caressed not Martin’s skin but his bare nerves. There was urgency in his deep, hungry kisses that said he would die if he stopped kissing. Martin was answering slowly, enjoying each dew of this sweet poison that fused in his chest.

They had shed their clothes to the floor and Alan awkwardly loomed over him, like he was at a loss what to start with. Martin reached out to his cock, stroking its hot skin and watching as the mask of perpetual smugness dropped and revealed an expression of almost religious ecstasy. Martin’s lips curved in a playful grin. How many years had he wasted beating his head against the unbreakable barrier that Alan had held with resolution despite all its cracks? And now it had collapsed, baring the tentacles of the ancient desire to become one.

Alan sunk his lips into his neck. His arms were shaking.

“Is it your first time?” he asked, barely audible. His face was still obscured by the shadow of dread, so Martin wrapped his arm around his neck, pulling his burning body close.

“No. Don’t hold back.”

And Alan entered, moving as if his life depended on it. He stroked Martin’s face, his hair, held him close, sunk his lips into Martin’s like he couldn’t get enough of it. Martin trembled of chest-tearing, lung-crashing excitement, and he grasped Alan’s neck, back, buttocks, making sure to leave nails marks in a proof that it all wasn’t a dream.

A quarter of an hour later they lay shoulder to shoulder and Alan dug his fingers into Martin’s curls, trailing careful kisses behind his ear. He raised on his elbow and with a free hand slowly caressed a thread down Martin’s abdomen. Martin wanted to yelp, to cry – anything just to let out that overflowing bitter emotion; the emotion he couldn’t breathe without.

“I’ll say this once,” Alan whispered, peering into Martin’s eyes. That longing that wringed his guts but also some unfamiliar tenderness were making his gaze hazy, and Martin couldn’t take his eyes off him.

“I’ve fought with this though enough. Wanted to banish it, lied to myself. But I can’t do this anymore. I can’t get you out of my head. And I don’t want us to wake up next morning and forget everything, pretend it was a mistake. I need you, Mart.”

Tapping a finger against his lips, Martin beckoned him and placed a scalding kiss to his skin.

“Words,” he said, smiling. “We don’t need words anymore, Al.”

Martin flinched of a brisk stroke of cold drops across his body. Andy plopped onto the lounge next to his, shaking his head to let the water out of his ears.

“Go take a dip, the water’s posh.”

Martin shook his head. Andy opened a hissing bottle of mineral water, trying to read his face. Taking a sip, he winced and moved closer.

“How’s Alan?”

“Working.”

“Of course he is.” Setting the bottle onto a small table with a crisp clank, Andy sat up and locked his hands. “Listen, if you want, we can set off for Milan right now.”

Martin couldn’t suppress a smile.

“So? Come on, I can see you’re bored. And there we can occasionally visit the studio.”

Andy winked and Martin turned red, regretting a bit that he’d told his friend about his bound with Alan. But who else if not Andy, who had spent years listening to Martin’s anguishing about continuous neglect from Wilder, deserved to know the truth?  

Next morning Dave met them at the central Milan station. He stood with his arms crossed on his chest, his whole posture showing discontent. No wonder, they made him ride across the city at this hour.

“And where’s your chocolate tan?” He nudged Martin’s ribs. “Fletch, did he spend the whole holiday like an old man under an umbrella again?”

Dave drove a rented Ford, bouncing his head to _Thieves Like Us_ that played on the radio. Andy was retelling him the recent football reruns he’d seen on cable TV with zest, and Martin wistfully observed the sweeping streets which festively speckled with signs of various cafes, bars and shops.

“Are you sure you want to go to the studio?” asked Dave, placing a cig between his teeth. “Slick’s throwing a tantrum.”

“Is there a time he doesn’t?” Andy snorted and reached out for Dave’s pack.

Martin turned to the window and propped his hand to his jaw so the boys wouldn’t notice his grin in the rear view mirror. Bernie Sumner was wailing through the speakers:

 

_I've lived my life on alcohol_

_I've lived my life on pills_

_But it's called love_

_And it belongs to us_

 

Martin didn't know how to call this feeling. He didn’t remember the moment when Alan’s sharp-nosed profile, bowed over a synthesizer with concentration, started to cause cramps in his chest. Such a distant, self-contained, mannerly intellectual who could spend hours on lectures about music and then taunt their foe tradesmen, nitpicking on every note; Alan had invaded Martin’s thoughts more than completely. His bones hurt as he was wailing and indulging in alcohol in his empty flat, knocking his head against the headrest of the bed and longing for an impossible intimacy with a man who was so very unlike himself. And now, when the wall between them crumbled with a crash, Martin remained wary of his happiness, as if afraid to scare it off.

When the trio tumbled into the studio they heard mixed beats and deep bass. But even over that loud music Alan’s chirping laughter was clearly distinguishable, and Martin’s heart leapt into his mouth. He got an urge to run up to Alan and throw himself at him, but instead he walked straight to the kitchen, where he made some coffee and poured it into four cups.

“Wow, how generous of you.” Dave looked surprised as he grabbed one of the cups and plopped down a chair.

“Well, it was us who made you wake up this early, wasn’t it.”

Dave scanned him with a suspicious look and smirked over his cup.

As Martin entered the room, making sure the coffee wouldn’t spill, Fletch had already been on the couch, a magazine in his hand.

“Blokes, just listen to this! ‘After seeing Depeche Mode at the Rose Bowl, hairdressers at Sal’s Hair Magic on Hollywood Boulevard decided that they were four wimps who don’t even know how to throw a football.’”

A mere sight of Alan’s back made shivers run down Martin’s spine. His shoulders were tense and his hands glued to the console regulators. Walking up to him and seeing his disheveled hair and peaked face Martin could barely suppress a smile. He placed a cup close to Alan’s hand. For a second he snarled, ready to attack the bastard who dared to keep coffee near the equipment, but as his grey eyes swept up he bloomed with a happy, warm smile. They gazed at each other saying nothing. Alan’s index finger brushed Martin’s palm.

“Thank you,” he said, picking the cup and blowing on the coffee. “You’re early, the album hasn’t been finished.”

“Somebody has to sing backing vocals.” Martin giggled.

“Nah, I would’ve moaned something myself. Or made Flood do it. Want a smoke?”

Fletch had still been reading aloud, it seemed he didn’t really need an audience, for when Alan and Martin passed him by on their way to the door he didn’t bat an eyelid.

At the courtyard, they hardly remembered about the cigarettes. Alan hugged Martin’s waist, and he wrapped his arms around Alan’s neck, exposing his face for a kiss which followed immediately. Alan was devouring him, gagging him with his tongue and sinking his teeth into his mouth, and Martin was choking, feeling his blood went south. He propped Alan with his back to the wall, gliding his hands across his chest, and then the door creaked, making them back off each other.

“Oh, didn’t mean to interrupt,” Fletch mumbled and, looking away, hurried to retire. Alan and Martin exchanged glances and burst out laughing.

*******

 

For the kilometres around stretched a deserted heath, the sun was blazing without mercy through the torrid glass of their minivan. The ramshackle AC wasn't helping any.

“I’m kinda becoming hungry,” Dave whined, jerking the back of the passenger’s seat where Anton was sitting. “How about we stop for a little break?”

“Dave, it's just a straight shot,” he answered, lighting up another cig.

He’d been repeating ‘it’s just a straight shot’ for bloody forty minutes already, pensive as he watched the sandy plains. Somebody had told him there was a picturesque village around these parts but didn’t bother to specify the name, and now they’d been driving hours around Milan’s outskirts in search for maestro’s inspiration.

Martin, unlike the antsy Dave, didn’t crave any food. He craved a drink. He hadn’t bat an eyelid the previous night, desperately trying to fit the word ‘metamorphosis’ into the given meter, or at least find an adequate synonym. At about six in the morning, when the crimson dawn pierced through the thin curtains, blinding him and promising a windy day, Alan walked into the room with a scenting cup of coffee and stooped to him, murmuring:

“Change?”

Was it the fault of his hazy mind, wounded by the nightlong violence of thought or the resurrecting fragrance that like no other associated with freshness of an early morning, but Martin was ready to grovel at his feet and kiss them like a cured holy fool would kiss the feet of the messiah. Of course he didn’t succumb to that frantic urge, but after a sip of coffee he did go down on his knees.

“Oh my God,” Alan moaned, dropping his head to the backrest of the divan and raised his hand up to his face. “I’m going to die.”

Martin breathed hotly over his cock, barely grazing its head with the tip of his tongue. He loved watching how sensually Alan was biting his lip and gasping for air, his fingers dug into a velvet cushion. With his free hand, he grasped Alan’s wrist and placed his hand in his hair. Shaky fingers firmed on his curls but he was afraid to tug, fighting with the overflowing passion that was beating his whole body with sweet tremors. Martin knew he was at his mercy, and the thought was making his head spin. So he moved his lips slower and more carefully, eliciting broken moans from Alan as if he was picking raspberries: wary, with mere fingertips so not to crush them and draw juice.

And now Alan was snoozing, his forehead propped to the window. He was wearing a new shirt with rose pattern; the roses rhapsodized by Robert Burns, which  newly sprung in June. Anton seemed to be captivated with this image too, for not long ago he’d made the chaps draw a rose each, considering to put the flower on the cover of the new album. Art had never been Martin’s forte and when he saw the lads’ sketches he felt no better. Well, at least his melodie  
sweetly play'd in tune.

The van jumped at a mound and its running became abrupt. The motor emitted a dying croak and Fletch – the driver – swore with feeling. They stopped.

Dave was delighted with the sudden standstill, he was running around the car with a can of beer and a cigarette, taunting Andy who was neck deep under the bonnet. Anton was esteeming the barrens, adorned only by a withered tree and cobblestones, with a wistful look. Alan reluctantly left the car, rubbing his eyes and grumbling.

“Bloody great.” Fletch slammed the bonnet and wiped the sweat from his brow. “We’ll have to call for a tow.”

Fortunately, they had a map with them, but, unfortunately, nobody had an idea where they’d been stuck. Scratching his chin in ponder, Anton walked to the trunk and got his equipment.

“What, right here?” Alan rolled his eyes. “Isn’t it better to get out first and then think about the photoshoot?”

“You don’t get it.” Martin shoved his hands into his pockets, watching Anton arranging his stuff on the roadside. “An artistic impulse is a whim, a spur of a moment. If you don’t give in, you’ll lose it.”

Alan sat on a cobblestone and meaningfully spat on the dusty road.

“You bloody geniuses are so hard to understand.”

The sky was exceptionally blue and Anton kept reminding them about it between instructions to part, prop their hands to their knees, lean, squat, scratch an ear with the left heel.

“Come to the front,” he commanded to Dave while lying at the ground and squinting at the viewfinder.

“Oh come on, you want me to be a blurry blotch again? I haven’t forgiven you for that bloody NME cover!”    

Martin and Andy exchanged glanced, suppressing laughter. Alan gave them a puzzled look.

A couple of draining hours later they made themselves comfortable on folding chairs, having spread out a cloth on the trunk and feasting on sandwiches and beer – sort of a roadside picnic. The rusty sun was verging to the horizon but not a single car had passed on this godforsaken country road.

“Once Grainne sent me to get her tampons at a drugstore,” Fletch said, chewing his awfully smelling chicken and pineapple sandwich. “So, I’m standing in a queue with a pack of tampons in my hand and only old ladies are around. And suddenly a horde of fifteen-year-old lasses bursts in and starts squeaking. They run up to me, I don’t have a chance to hide or escape before they demand an autograph and a photo, and I’m just standing there with bloody tampons and thinking: why the fuck didn’t I pick up a jacket to hide them in a pocket?”

Dave hollered with laughter, hysterically clapping Andy’s shoulder. His amusement had always been infectious and Martin couldn’t hold back a smile, and now the gloomy Alan giggled along with him, and even permanently serious Anton emitted a few nasal chuckles.

They were running out of beer.

“Listen, Anton.” Dave turned to him. “Is it true that Ian was inspired by seizures when he was coming out with his movements?”

Without standing up from the chair, he began to jerk his arms, rolling his eyes back and sticking out his dangling tongue. Anton took his cigarette out of his mouth, staring at him like he'd been slapped on the back of his head.

“Well, opinions vary. Bernard says yes.”

Awkward silence filled the air. Anton’s eyes, shrouded with light sadness, were fixed on a spot in front of himself.

“All in all, he was quite a private person,” Anton continued when nobody expected for him to do so. “I mean, he didn’t try to hide his true nature but no one of us knew him for real, not even Annik. I can’t say I was shocked by what happened to him, but for a long time I couldn’t believe it. Sometimes I think that creative work is a hard drug, and fame only worsens its side-effects. This volatile mix can kill an artist whose backbone has already been gnawed.”

It had become dark enough but Martin didn’t fail to notice how Anton’s gaze fixed on him for a moment.

When finally the sky became painted in deep ink and grasshoppers’ warble filled the chilly air Dave straightened and dusted off his white jeans.

“All right lads, I’m gonna go search for that bloody village,” he said, all business-like placing a cig between his teeth. “We can’t stay here for the night, right? There’s no beer. Anybody wanna join me?”

Without much thought Martin left his seat – Dave was right, it was awfully dull to sit in the middle of the road without any drinks. Fletch volunteered to make a fire when they set off, and not before long deafening silence enthroned, and only the rustle of their steps bothered it.

“Fuck,” Dave said, looking back. They’d walked plenty and hadn’t seen a single soul around yet. “Do you remember where we made the last turn?”

“Nah.”

Now they were running out of cigarettes. Martin was tired of walking and his boots started to pinch. He desperately needed a drink.

Like an oasis in the middle of a desert, a settlement emerged before their eyes. It could be hardly called a village, because it consisted of a mere dozen of lop-sided huts. Dave rushed at the direction of a lantern-lit house, Martin slowly followed. A swarm of many thousands midges buzzed about the lantern bulb.

The villagers hardly spoke any English but Dave and Martin managed to find out that they didn’t have any means of transportation at the point save for the horses that already slept in their stalls. They hit a place which looked like a booze joint, and while Dave was talking on the phone, all frowned, Martin plopped down a bar stool and ordered a whiskey. Unfortunately, whiskey was out of stock, so he had to drink vodka, though he was content with this much.

The establishment reminded of a saloon from westerns and Martin was waiting that any minute now the swing doors would sweep open, letting in Clint Eastwood himself. Elvis was playing, and warmth from the liquor and smoke spread in Martin’s chest. He started to like it there.

“That's settled, the tow will pick up the blokes shortly,” Dave informed, leaning on the bar desk and gesturing at the moustached barmaid to get him a shotglass. “It’s not bad here, innit?”

“Yeah.” Martin smiled quietly. “Although Eastwood is lacking, or Van Cleef.”

Dave laughed and downed his glass.

“Too bad you didn’t bring your cowboy hat, eh? And that Anton didn’t go with us, this atmosphere would surely inspire him.”

They exchanged glances and, like a lightning strike, Martin was hit by a brilliant idea. He rummaged in his pockets and with great disappointment discovered that he’d left his notebook in the car.

“I can’t take it down,” he jabbered to the cheered up Dave’s ear, “so listen and take it in. It will make an outstanding video, Dave, I don’t know for what song but the style suits us just right. Look, look.”

Dave nodded with a smart look, even though he'd already was becoming a bit cross-eyed.      

“We all will be cowboys. In those, you know, suede jackets with fringe, boots with spurs. The background can be something like that hut over there.” He pointed at the window. “And hats, of course. Good thing I stocked up on them back in the day, finally will be of some use. Fletch will ride a horse; a lonesome cowboy, high plains drifter. You will be a local sheriff, suspicious of the outsider. We also need a showdown with you two glaring at each other while a tumbleweed rolls between you on the ground.”

Knocking his glass against the counter, Dave burst out laughing, attracting attention of the public.

“You’re such a fantasist, Gore. I had no idea you could be so chatty.”

“Would you listen to me for a minute?” Martin squeezed his shoulder and shook him with force. “All right, we don’t have to be all cowboys. I can be a priest, and Alan...”

Having said his name aloud, Martin felt a strange anguish. As if he sensed how Alan was freezing in the middle of nowhere with Anton and Andy while he and Dave were having a good time. It was an odd and unfamiliar feeling, not like the one he’d experienced years before present on breaks from touring – he could easily find a girl to get distracted and not to think of the fact that for some unknown reason he wanted to see Wilder, who had done nothing more aside from perpetually pestering him. And it was unlike the fit of yearning he got in Livorno.

Oh, he was fucked.

Dave nudged his ribs; he lifted his head and glimpsed a raven-haired beauty with red lips passing them by. She winked at him.

“That's it!” Martin hit the counter with his fist, which got him a look of disapproval from the moustached barmaid. “There will be latin girls – dancers. With huge earrings and deep cleavages.”

“Ooh, now we’re talking!” Dave winded an arm around his shoulders and shook him in a friendly hug. “Does the cleavage mean there will be a shamelessly peeking mole on her beast?”

“Well, what’s the point if not?”

They giggled, squeezing each other’s shoulders and renewed their glasses. They ran out of vodka and the barmade offered them a booze so strong that just after a couple of shots Dave climbed the counter and started to sing along to Elvis, stripping off his shirt with great panache. Surprisingly the audience didn’t mind; quite the opposite, they applauded to his staggering dance. The beauty with red lips sat next to Martin and he’d already got his hands under her skirt when Dave grabbed him and pulled onto the counter, and together they performed such a heated striptease that the folks had to kick them out.

He woke up from the prickly feeling on his skin and found Dave peacefully snoring on his chest. Martin shivered and, carefully shoving his lad off himself, sat up and looked around. His head was splitting in two. They were lying on top of a haystack; the sky in the glow of the dawn was overcast. Their clothes were nowhere in sight.

“Dave.” Martin kicked him to the back. “Dave, wake up. We’re fucked.”

Not only their clothes had disappeared, but also their money. Martin was dying for a smoke, to the point where his eyes got teary. He squatted by the roadside, catching angry looks from passing women.

“What are you staring at?” Dave shouted to them. “Haven’t seen a man in his undies before, eh?”

The women sped up. A blurry spot appeared in the horizon. It was rapidly approaching and Martin rubbed his eyes, not believing their luck.

Fletch was dying laughing and even Anton giggled into his palm. Alan took a cigarette with a scornful look and Martin immediately clung to him.

“Give me one, please, please,” he pleaded, hopping in impatience.

“It’s my last one,” Alan barked, taking a hungry drag.

“Al, don’t be a wanker, share!”

Dave joined the hollering Fletch, who had courteously removed his jacket and placed it on Dave’s shoulders.  

Alan’s leaden eyes stared right at Martin. There was reprimand in them, but his look wasn't spiteful. Truth be told, Martin didn’t want to smoke anymore; he was inhaling what Alan was emitting, and the scent of tobacco was mingling with the almost worn-out smell of his hair gel. Warmth spread through his body and he repelled from Alan, chuckling and sneakily pinching his own thigh so his excitement wouldn’t become too obvious for the others.

They found their clothes behind the counter in the saloon and, as a parting gift, got a few bottles of that strong stuff they drank yesterday, which appeared to be grape-brandy. The road back to Milan was drowsy and silent, until Martin suddenly remembered something important.

“Dave, do you remember what I told you about the idea for a video?”

 

*******

 

The sun feebly shone through the curtains of the hotel room, gleaming with enthusiasm of a bank clerk who had to leave home for work at six on Wednesday. Martin bit the tip of his pen, sitting in bed naked and hypnotizing the crossed out lines in his notebook:

 

_This is the morning of our love_

_It's just the dawning of our love_

 

He couldn’t sleep, unlike Alan who was spread out across the other half. Funny was how even asleep he managed to maintain a serious face. But despite the crease between his brows, his features – fluttering eyelashes, barely opened mouth with wet edges of his crooked teeth peeking from it, his Adam apple gliding up and down, strands of gelled hair falling on his forehead; all that was making Martin feel icy heat spilling inside his stomach.  

He rarely thought about Alan when he wasn’t nearby. But every time he popped up in his vision, sometimes loudly rebuking the others for loitering in the studio, sometimes just moving the regulators of the console, sometimes thoughtfully closing his chapped lips around a cigarette; Martin shivered from the prickling, intrusive itch in his chest. How many times Martin wanted to say no to Alan’s offer to stay at his room for the night, but when he would lean to Martin and with a piercing and bold stare slide his finger along Martin’s exposed collarbone, he gave in like Napoleon who realized his defeat in the middle of the frosty Russian heath.

He didn’t like feeling dozens of invisible hooks clawing under his ribs: like somebody was about to pull and them, breaking open his ribs and place them up, like wings. He didn’t want to follow someone, even more so under male domination. Martin had expected to be in control of his own actions and feelings; he’d never had any problems with this before. So he’d never thought to find himself in a position where he had to put up with someone else’s principles contrary to his own.

Everything would’ve been different if Alan were a woman. With women, submission had always been rather a game, so Martin didn’t mind playing a humble servant for them. But Alan was trying to make him his own for real, and Martin couldn’t find the strength to fight back, shaking in his arms and squirming under him. It wasn’t even about sex; he was used to experiments and they didn’t frighten him. But the thought that Alan had been becoming a part of his life more and more, or rather was making _him_ a part of his own, soaking him up like a greedy sponge, stood in the way of Martin’s beliefs. He needed Alan, and the terror of this knowledge shackled his spine with ice.

His chest ached when Alan rolled to his side and propped his chin with a weakly clasped fist. He looked almost vulnerable, and something inside Martin lurched with a sick desire to hurt him.

He shook his head trying to banish this feeling, but it only firmed, building up into agitation from that slow and hot breath that barely touched his bare skin. Placing the notebook and the pen onto the nightstand, Martin walked around the room. A mist soared outside the window, blurry like someone’s vision after a restless night. 

Without having a cup of coffee, he dressed up and left the room.


	2. I've broken my fall, put an end to it all, I've changed my routine

 

“I don’t know, Dave, you're too eager with her.”

It was good fun to observe the contrast of two tempers: the angrily tilting his head Dave, and the smoking with cold absence in his eyes Anton. And even in that, they were really similar.

“Have you seen how hot she is?” Dave whispered, and so loudly that everyone heard him, including the model who’d closed her shirt and was fingering a lock of her hair.

“But of course, you think I’d pick an unattractive girl for a video like this?”

Dave clicked his tongue and shrugged. Fletch chuckled, took a sip of his beer and leaned back to the couch.

“What’s funny?” Dave attacked him. “You want to switch places?”

“Why not.” Andy adjusted his glasses, all business-like. Martin smirked, imagining how Grainne would be boycotting him in bed for weeks after something like this.

They were snacking in an impromptu canteen. The model – Angel? Angelina? Martin couldn’t recall her name – sunk her teeth into a shining green apple. A trickle of juice spurted down her chin.

Martin felt a fatherly pat on his shoulder.

“Well, Mart, maybe you’ll try?”

Anton wasn’t smiling – he rarely smiled at all, even when he joked. The girl turned to Martin and beamed at him, casting her eyelashes and right immediately darting her eyes back at him.

Having returned to the filming location, Dave complained a lot about being awakened this early only to drink lager and watch some ‘perverted porno’. Alan scathingly noted that all he’d been doing in the studio was drinking and wanking anyway. Fletch was watching the girl with interest; she had to climb out of the swimming pool with utmost grace and cover herself with a see-through shirt.

Martin was sitting on a couch but it felt like a surgical table. The girl clasped his neck with her trembling hands and couldn’t contain a sheepish giggle.

“This won’t do.” Anton shook his head. “Rehearse.”

She laughed while Martin was kissing her with closed mouth. She smelled nicely of lilies and bleach. Her thighs were exceptionally lenient in his hands, a knee slid between his legs. Martin noisily exhaled, breaking away and looking into her playful black eyes.

Now the camera was ready. Fun time was over.

“There’s a subtlest border between love and sex,” Anton spoke without tearing apart from the camera. “She came to you after a dip; she’s clean and open, she’s giving you every inch of herself without holding back, without any pretense. You know what you want from her, but all the same you’re mesmerized by her image. By her purity. Frankness. She is the only one, she’s only for you, and you’re only for her.”

And Martin was mesmerized, trying to suppress his heavy breathing while the girl was biting onto his lip, gently lacing her fingers into his hair.

“And speaking of this subtle border, you need to show a genuine feeling. No haste is necessary, you know each other’s lips and hands, know what each of you prefers. Excellent, excellent.”

Martin fought with the urge to say that his song wasn’t about this, but when the girl rose on her knees and hotly pressed to his body, penetrating his mouth with her tongue, stroking and caressing his shoulders and arms, he forgot all disagreements altogether.

“True love is familiarity. We return where we’ve been to hundreds of times, but we keep being drawn there, again and again. And it’s not a mere threadbare habit, because every time we discover something new in this familiar and dear old.”

He was hot. Without breaking the kiss, he easily picked the girl up under her shoulderblades and lowered her to her back, sensing that she slowly raised her legs. So close, just a centimetre from her gracefully arching body, his hand ached from the urge to stroke between her legs, caress her until she would shiver from his touch. He still couldn’t remember her name.

“This is ridiculous,” Dave’s voice came in, followed by the rustle of leaving steps.

With great effort Martin stood up upon Anton's command, and when the filming was over he plopped back to the couch, scratching his cheek. The girl sat farther from him, locking her hands and smiling nervously. Dave and Alan were nowhere in sight.

It wasn’t clear whether Anton was satisfied with the result as he walked back and forth, scribbling in his notebook and talking to the film crew.

“Let’s go have a smoke?” Fletch put a palm on Martin’s shoulder and the spot of contact sweetly ached. Martin looked at his friend who expressively cleared his throat.

In the smoking area Dave was talking to Alan with notable agitation, but seeing Martin and Andy he went silent. Alan was wearing sunglasses so it was hard to tell where he was looking.

“So, did you please our genius, eh, stallion?” Dave patted Martin’s shoulder with amusement.

Fletch seemed to be thrilled most of them all, for he wouldn’t stop praising Anton’s grand gift. The door creaked and from the concrete ladder the model descended to them: her hair brought up in a ponytail, skinny jeans and the same exact shirt on her. She was coyly holding a cigarette and a folded piece of paper.

“For you,” she quietly told Martin and gave the note to him. Without paying it a glance, he shoved it into his pocket, feeling how the lads stared at him. In the daylight the model’s skin looked even more velvety than it felt in the dark, and Martin bit the inside of his cheek, trying to calm down his rising afresh heartbeat.   

 

*******

 

The September London welcomed them with gusting wind and a wall of continuous rain. Oddly enough, the damp smell of Themes had long since lost its nostalgic effect, and Martin preferred to return to ‘Hanza’ rather than to ‘The Church’.

The summer they spent in Italy and Denmark seemed to belong in a different world. It had no end in a long series of parties, walks around dusty towns, drinking sprees and occasional vocal recordings. Alan hardly talked to anyone inside the band and was spending the biggest part of his wakefulness with Flood, hitting synth keys with dry precision. _Violator_ , like the blokes ironically called their newest creation, promised to be commercially-viable as nothing else they’d released before. But Alan didn’t seem to be concerned about that. Nobody could tell if he was concerned about anything at all but the constant stock of cigarettes and coffee in the studio.   

Not without annoyance Martin was taking in his coldness and inapproachability. Wasn’t he supposed to lift in spirits and start taking part in arguments and parties at least once in a while? Not just arch an eyebrow at every remark. Even more so, he was ignoring Martin, which took some brass given a certain conversation they’d had one sultry Danish night.

“We can’t continue like this.”

Martin lazily stretched on sheets, not really getting what Alan was driving at. He was half-sitting in bed with a smoldering cigarette between his long fingers, staring at the emptiness with unblinking eyes. Ashes fell to the sheets, but Alan didn’t move a muscle.

“Like what?” Martin asked, yawning. He was desperately sleepy and even more less interested in any talking.

“All of this.” Alan made a vague gesture about the room. The window was ajar, their clothes scattered across the floor. There were a few empty vermouth bottles on the rug. Martin rolled to his side, tucking his arm behind his head and threading the fingers of his free hand from the armpit to the ribs.

“Well, I guess you’re right.”

As a matter of fact, both of them had got enough of what they wanted. Not once, not twice – practically every night during three months, either of them one way or the other ended up in the hotel room of the second party, tapping out a code of four knocks on the door. And every time Martin felt those words dancing at the tip of his tongue but couldn’t say them. As if the pain he felt from their bound – so strange as if a silent agreement between two condemned criminals to run away at the face of the scaffold, but profound and necessary like oxygen – this pain was beginning to give him a special sort of masochistic pleasure. Every time he looked at Alan through hazy dusk he knew that he’d do anything Martin would ask him to do. And Alan was doing everything Martin asked, or rather, silently made him do. But much scarier was that Martin himself was doing everything Alan wanted.

Less than anything he expected that Alan would stop talking to him at all, and even in the studio their communication was limited to curt ‘hello-goodbye’s. Like they were strangers. Martin was sizzling quietly, standing in the glass cubicle and pressing the headphones to his ears, his eyes fixed on the statue of Alan looming over the console. 

 

_I stop and I stare too much_

_Afraid that I care too much_

_And I hardly dare to touch_

_For fear that the spell may be broken_

 

His jaw hurt from singing through clenched teeth, and his voice sounded lower than it was necessary. Alan looked at him but his eyes stayed empty, and only his hands worked with mechanic precision.

 

_Things you'd expect to be_

_Having effect on me_

_Pass undetectedly_

_But everyone knows what has got me_

 

Leaving the cubicle, Martin wanted to head straight to the smoking area but Alan thrusted the headphones to his stomach. Martin grabbed them with stiff fingers.

“It’s no good,” Alan stated before Martin hardly finished listening to the recording. “The way you drag the chorus, it’s all wrong. It sucks, I knew Dave would be better to sing this one.”

Martin pulled on a way too syrupy smile.

“Oh, I didn’t know that Mr. Wilder out there was capable to speak human tongue.”

The look Alan darted at him, no matter that sent from below, was effusing such pure malice that Martin’s intestines itched. As if sensing the growing tension in the studio, Dave walked up to them and, putting his hand on Alan’s shoulder, snatched the headphones from Martin’s steely grip and listened to the recording with great focus.

“Sounds pretty good to me!” he concluded, lowering the headphones so they dangled from his neck. “We could add backing vocals to the chorus, if you want.”

“I’m not going to sing this,” Alan said curtly and reached to a pack of cigarettes.

“Why not? The song’s pretty gloomy, exactly how you like it.”

Judging by the fierce drag he took and how his fingers crooked around the cigarette, Alan wasn’t going to answer either. Dave shrugged.

“Well, all right, I can do it.”

The atmosphere in the studio toned down a bit, much to Dave’s credit. He would occasionally shove himself between Martin and Alan when things seemed about to turn into a bloodbath. Fletch was pretty helpful too, with his artistic reading of trashy articles about Depeche Mode in tabloids.

Journalists’ attacks had long since stopped bothering them, especially Miller who was spending less and less time in the studio but rubbing his hands in expectance of tremendous sales more and more. Just to let everyone blow off some steam he arranged a nice private party in one of the well-known London clubs. It came as no surprise that Alan rejected the invitation.

Champagne flowed like a river, and soon Martin lost sight of Dave who was exalted from everyone’s attention, and Andy who was following him like a loyal bodyguard.  

“ _Je suis désolé_ , is it fine if I sit here?”

The unmistakable odor of Chanel №5 made Martin raise his head. At his table, crossing her fine legs, sat a dazzling brunette with a scarlet mouth curved in a wide smile of pearl-white teeth.

“I presume you don’t quite remember me,” she said, flipping her hair to the side. “We met in Paris last year. Suzanne Boisvert.”

Martin thoughtfully shook hands with her, noting how soft were her short fingers in adornment of thin golden rings. Right, he now remembered how he had admired the exquisite lingerie of her design, and how the whole evening had tried to squeeze her bum but Dave got ahead of him. Now Dave wasn’t anywhere around, and Suzanne seemed to have been working hard to become even hotter.

Three glasses later she tactfully switched seats and Martin casually reached the back of her chair.

“You’re so sweet, mister Gore,” she giggled, pronouncing his surname with sensual purring. Martin’s toes curled of curiosity how she’d pronounce it with his face between her legs.

In just an hour she was riding him like a champion jockey, without missing any chances to pinch his nipple or bite his neck. Martin was so drunk that he came first and had to finish the work with his hands, although it seemed that Suzanne didn’t really need his help – she was this wild.

Panting in a suddenly silent hotel room, Martin nuzzled between her breasts as she was twisting his curls with her lenient fingers – and she hadn't taken off the rings. Lowering his eyelids, he rubbed soothing circles into her back. Her ribs and spine were rather prominent, just like Alan’s when he embraced Martin with terror in his eyes in a hot bath in Tokyo three years ago. Martin threw his eyes open, banishing the sickly smell of salty boiling water; no, it was the smell of Alan’s heated skin and the taste of his own tears.

Suzanne’s eyelashes fluttered with longing that was nothing like the madness with which Alan stared at him that night when he almost died. Metal claws made his throat spasm in an invisible grip. Martin rolled to his stomach, ravishing Suzanne’s lips with frenzy and profound desire to get rid of that memory forever.

Only by the next evening they signed out of the hotel, and Martin spent almost a whole day lying dead in his London flat while his phone was bursting with the calls from the studio.    

 

*******

 

“Good lord, save our souls...”

Fletch clasped his head, and for a second it seemed that he turned to the driver to cross himself. Even Dave, who’d been light-heartedly sipping on his beer through the whole ride to ‘Wherehouse’, lowered his bottle and stared wide-eyed at the roaring black ocean. For kilometres around stretched an enormous mass of people, as if it was Rose Bowl bursting and erupting its contents into the streets of Los-Angeles in an uncontrolled flow.

“Lads, we’re going to get murdered,” Alan stated, taking four cigarettes at once and handing them out.

An autograph session was out of question now. Even if they’d thicken the guard in two rows and let the fans enter the shop in fifty people parties, it still would take at least a fortnight (that without any breaks for sleep, meals and toilet) to sign the newborn _Violator_ for each of them.

Andy recovered after saying a few prayers and ordered the driver to get back to the hotel. Daniel welcomed them in the hall, nearly dancing with happiness.

And money started pouring in like a dark river. It wasn’t just a river, it was a sea of sin, each drop of which was made of money. For a few weeks while Fletch and Miller were scheduling the _World Violation Tour_ dates in the US, the rest headed separate ways to squander their unimaginable fees. Sometimes the fun was interrupted by press-conferences and interviews. Once again questioned about his dresses, Martin, not without bile, answered that that style was a tasteless phase that barely lasted a year and he wasn’t going to get back to it.   

Having fooled around to his heart's content in several cities around the world, moving from one to another on a private plane, Martin sobered up for a minute in a New-York hotel. He found himself among four sleeping prostitutes of various features, sat up and decided to invest into real estate somewhere in the south-west of England. A couple of days after he moved into an obscure, mold-reeking detached house in Hertfordshire and had spent one more week in bed with Suzanne there, until one morning a demanding door bell woke him up.

Andy lifted an eyebrow, not even trying to hide the dumbfound stare with which he was regarding the view of a dark living room in stone, a leather couch, an oak table, a fireplace and a monstrous-sized bear skin on the floor.

“Shouldn’t you cover yourself up?” he told Martin and carefully seated himself on the edge of the couch. He didn’t take the offered glass of bourbon.

“We’re departing the day after tomorrow,” he said in a voice that to Martin sounded very unlike the one he knew so well – the voice that so often whispered passionate words of support to him.  

Martin nodded in estrangement, emptying his glass and renewing his drink. He sensed with his back that Andy approached him from behind but kept the distance of arm's length.

“Listen, Mart, you don’t look so good. Perhaps you should, you know, go easy on alcohol?”

If he wasn’t used to drinking liquor instead of water he’d probably choke on his drink. Turning and looking at his friend with puzzled eyes, Martin exploded with laughter despite any inner volition. Fletch was staying with his arms glued to his sides and peered at him from under the morbidly furrowed brows. This rare to witness look of a suffering lamb made something slippery lash in Martin’s chest, and he stepped forward, grasping Andy’s shoulder and squeezing it hard enough to reassure him.

“Don’t worry, I got everything under control.”

A heavy sigh, ambivalence in his features, a slightly opened mouth – Andy didn't say anything even though he clearly wanted to, and patted Martin's hand on his shoulder.

“Who’s there, darling?” Suzanne’s voice sounded from the bedroom, and she swam out of there like a midnight nymph, closing up her milky robe and leaning to the door frame.

“This is my best friend, Andy Fletcher. We went to school together,” Martin explained in a voice that didn’t belong to him – it really sounded different, somehow lower, whenever he spoke to her. “Andy, meet my fiancée – Suzanne.”

Despite Suzanne’s fuss around the coffee-machine, Fletch declined the offer to stay and have a drink, step by step retiring to the door. On his way out he looked Martin over with a serious gaze that he normally used for strangers.

“The day after tomorrow, Pensacola. Don’t forget,” he said dryly and hurried to leave.

 

*******

 

“Look! Look at them!”

Dave was beating his bent leg to the rhythm of the music, squeezing an almost empty bottle of water in his other hand. He was soaking wet but the smile wouldn’t leave his face for a second. It had something from a madman.

Holding tighter onto the guitar and pressing into Dave’s sweaty arm, Martin cast a glance around the mile of raging blackness before them. Those were people, he didn’t know how many because all of them blended into a roaring swarm, making noises that a crusader army would make.

They wanted more. They shouted, and he couldn’t make out separate voices, only the merged howl of the earth.

“I’m scared,” Martin mumbled, clenching his fingers on the guitar neck so hard that the strings sunk into his skin and left burns.

“What?” Dave giggled. He stood up, thrusting out his rear for the audience, which caused even more of that vibrating, all-absorbing clamour, and propped his hands to his knees. His eyes flashed with maniac pleasure.

Miles away from them, somewhere out of this hellish space, came in the rattling beginning of _Behind The Wheel_. Martin sprung up on his gooey legs; his sight narrowed to the stage: there he was, his school friend Andy, just a couple of metres away, at the synthesizer. A latch in his lungs unlocked and he took a full breath feeling a bit nauseous and dizzy from all the drinks he’d had.

As if stung, Dave ran to the centre of the stage, frantically thrusting his hips and grabbing the mic with one hand and his balls with the other. Martin heard his own voice before he realized that he’d began singing along with Dave, and the sound of their voices united in a stream of stark, unstoppable force. The force that сontrolled the beast before them.

“Mart, do you feel it?” Dave shouted from the estrade during the bridge. “It’s like a real orgasm, no, better! You won’t experience anything more powerful than this!”

Bursting with laughter, he rushed to the synth on the right, behind which a devilish smirk was visible. Martin tried hard not to look there and circled around the stage, bobbing his head to the music – it was fine, for the blissful crowd it was just a dance and not the desperate attempt to keep upright. He even raised the guitar in front of his face, blocking out the view his eyes eventually got drawn to anyway. Dave was rolling his hips like a brilliant stripper – even better – and Alan echoed his movements, despite being enchained to the keys. His grin was so obnoxious and smug that it wasn’t necessary for him to stay closer to Dave to belong in a dance with him.

Thankfully, Dave was the one singing _Route 66_ on this tour. Martin couldn’t have handled performing for one second longer. He moved to the stage exit even before the last accord of the song boomed, and the audience exploded with a whir that more resembled agonized cries of sinners at the second circle of hell than a round of applause.

The dressing room was no calmer. Hordes of people, acquaintances and strangers, all made it their job to pat Martin’s shoulder, to say praises, all wearing ugly ear-to-ear smirks. Somewhere on the outskirts of his vision Dave was flouncing, still dancing and brandishing god-knows-where-he-found-it bottle of vodka. When would his energy be gone? It was becoming unbearable just to exist in the range of that wave, just standing next to him was making Martin sick.

But despite the skin-burning discomfort, he approached Dave. Approached him only to snatch the bottle from his hands and violently suck onto it. His throat burned so badly that tears welled in his eyes, and his stomach made a flip, demanding to stop this torture. Martin withstood it with fortitude, dried the bottle and silently handed it back to Dave, who stared at him open-mouthed.

He didn't hear who shouted to his back and what as he was heading to the bathroom with unsteady but resolute steps. He wasn’t nauseous anymore but his throat was being throttled in an iron grip while the surface of his brain was being scratched with a grater file.

Martin locked himself in a stall and only when he dropped his face into his palms noticed that the guitar was still a dead weight on him. It poked him with judgment somewhere in the area of the remnants of his liver.  

He wanted to whine from pain and fear. In his eyes pulsed with red and white ripples, the obscene scribbles on the stall door doubled and tripled in his vision. The worst was that he was watching himself as if from the side, not from his own eyes. It was a silent movie about Martin Gore, who was sitting with his feet up the closed toilet lid and pressing his hands to his ears so hard like he was going to crash his own skull. At this point it wouldn’t surprise him if a black screen appeared to the jaunty piano, his barely suppressed howl reading in ornate font:

_“_ _AAAAAAAAAAA!!!”_

_– wailed Martin Gore_.

 

But of course he wailed not. Strange was how all emotions evaporated at once and he found a sense of steady, visceral _nothing_. But it only lasted this much before his chest ached again, stomach spasmed again, head about to blow into pieces without any assistance.

Exhausted, Martin let his feet slide from the lid and land onto the tiled floor. His hand reached into the inside pocket of his jacket on its own and touched a razor that he’d put there a couple of years ago. He forgot why.

Rolling his sleeves, he stared at his (no, not his, Martin Gore’s – the silent movie character) shamefully bare, smooth wrists. Perhaps he should’ve prickled himself all over with manly tattoos instead of wearing clusters of bracelets.

Tonight, however, he hadn’t put on any so it was easy to slit open the skin, feeling the burning brush of steel changing into dull ache and then growing lightheadedness. Flying high, never want to come down, never want to put his feet back down on the ground.

It was gruesomely fun imagining everyone’s faces when they’d find his lifeless body. Miller would spread his arms in fury and leave, spitting curses. Dave would probably mumble something like “Oh, well...”, rub his chin in a trance while a cigarette would die out between his fingers. Andy... no, he wanted to puke of mere visualization of his reaction.

Pain stung his chest and his fingers flinched on the razor. He tried hard and failed to imagine Alan’s face. Would he silently look at his body with an unreadable expression? Would he take his hand and quietly bring it to his lips? Bite the inside of his cheek, fighting with the stream of hot tears? Curse Martin’s immortal soul goodbye? Or maybe laugh right into his breathless face?

His insides throbbed, he was hit with an atrocious chill. Again that dread was swallowing him whole, like a black abyss closing above his head. A suffocating urge to hear four familiar knocks and Alan’s concerned voice thundered through him; to open the door, to see the dear face with that peculiar brow arch, tenderness in the eyes that changed hues depending on lighting. Here they might’ve looked hazel. To snuggle into a welcoming embrace like nothing happened, like the strained tragedy didn’t exist, like the unsaid verdict didn't loom in the heavy air. Martin’s chin began to tremble.

“Mart? Mart, are you here?”

For a split second his heart was spilled over with a hot avalanche, but recognizing the voice of the old friend Martin balled his hands into fists and slid to the floor. He was completely beaten and worn, and that oath-breaking disappointment became the last straw.

Martin didn’t move a finger while Andy was drumming to the stall door, ending up jerking it open thus ripping off the lock. He ranted and tried to wind Martin’s arm over his shoulders but his inertness didn't make it an easy task. Hearing a worried gasp his friend made Martin realized that something was wrong. He opened his fist and heard a thin jingle of metal against the tiles. A dark, viscous trail flowed down his palm.

All was blurry, as if the finale of that ominous silent movie was recorded on poor quality film. He only understood that Andy had picked him up and was carrying him somewhere – he couldn't see where, but, all in all, Martin didn't give a damn. Some soothing sweet nothings were whispered into his ear, although he could only distinguish the tone, not the words. Andy’s breath against his neck lulled Martin into sleep and he didn’t get to know where his friend brought him. 


	3. I’m not going down on my knees begging you to adore me

 

“Don’t worry. The song’s good. And we’re a team, so anything you can’t do me, Dave and Fletch will do.”

The least he expected to hear such words from Wilder; that same Wilder who seldom looked up from the synthesizer and even when he did, his face was imbued with cynicism and superiority to the last crease. But now his voice was soft, nearly intimate like he was giving advice to his younger brother, though it lacked any condescendence. He gazed at Martin with his light eyes, bluish in the morning haze of the kitchen, so genially that Martin felt a warm cloud swelling in his stomach. It wasn’t helping any that Alan had been squeezing Martin’s hand in his, and that gesture was more persuading than his words or look.

It was a little too much. Martin felt like a fool for having thought of Wilder as of a foe, as of someone who had been able to replace him in the band. Dave could never compete with him in songwriting, and Andy... well, Andy was Andy. But Alan had seemed a real threat with his musical education and aristocratic upbringing. He wasn’t one of the basildonian peckerwoods who flushed all his savings on a synth he didn’t know how to play.

Alan gave the impression of a person who knew exactly what he wanted. And now, when he peered at Martin with kind support and some inexplicable thrill in his eyes, Martin felt a sharp urge to trust him. And that profound drive scared him so much that he had to back away.

From the very first glance Martin became cautious of the new tour keyboardist. Well, sure, he used to be cautious of Dave too, but that bloke was thoroughly optimistic and his enormous energy was so infectious that even Fletch, who had never been overly social, laughed his arse off at Dave's jokes and worked with much more productivity.

“I’m a bit afraid of Dave,” Vince once said over a pint of beer. Martin only smiled in response, watching Dave shaking his hips in a circle of applauding girls. He didn’t understand the true meaning of those words back then, neither he got the reason behind Vince’s departure. But with Alan’s arrival in the band the voltage increased so much that Martin had to squeeze back into his shell to avoid a direct confrontation with an outside predator.

However, at first the option of Alan's working with the band long-term wasn’t being addressed. He’d never asked that question but radiated such stark self-assuredness that sometimes Martin's knees shook when Alan was at the keys. It had been difficult for him to write songs before Alan joined them, but afterwards working on lyrics became a real torture.

With immense dread Martin listened to Alan’s demos where he sang about preservation of our planet with a markedly natural aplomb. It was strange, Martin did realize that Alan’s lyrics were not any better than his own from the poetic standpoint, and yet there was something idiosyncratic in them. Something that made it unmistakable that those were the lyrics written by Alan Charles Wilder.  

He thought that if he’d hit the right spot with the poetry subject, the key to the mystery would’ve presented itself. Following Alan’s advice, he accepted _Construction Time Again_ how it was and eased his mind for a while. But something was off. Certainly, the album wasn’t bad; it was fresh and each of them, Miller included, was quite satisfied with it. But not Martin.

Each night he squeezed the lyrics on thought-provoking topics out of himself; those he thought obligatory to speak on. And having given birth to _People Are People_ , he instantly realized the child wasn’t his. A foster son whom everyone admired, and only Martin clearly saw features of a stranger in him.

Of course there had been more innermost songs that Martin hesitated to bring to the studio. The fatal atmosphere of Berlin assured him that stripping to show off his body was acceptable after a bottle or two of fine gin, and he enjoyed to take off his skimpy outfits in crowded nightclubs to the strangers’ whistling and friends’ swearing.

But stripping down to show his soul was unacceptable. Back in elementary school he confessed his affection to a classmate, giving her a scrupulously crafted splash-paper daisy. For that he was cruelly laughed at by his little mistress around her friends and the rest of their class, who called him a ninny gardener up until their graduation. From then own, Martin didn’t strive to let the world know about his feelings.

Sure thing, he longed love. And from one point when the band became more or less recognizable outside of Basildon, girls started to throw themselves on him. It was amusing and he smirked at the thought that everyone who had thought him a freak and a nerd at school now would’ve died to become his friend or a girlfriend. But something crucial lacked in that spurt of affection, something that his soul craved with force that was able to move stars and planets.

Martin was used to solitude. Not that he liked it much, but he’d come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t a good idea to inform every other girlfriend that, in his humble opinion, relationships between men and women didn’t have to base on the worn stereotype of a domestic goddess tied to the airtight stone wall.

Martin had never been a stone wall, and the list of things his mother thought obligatory for him to be able to do bored him to death. He couldn’t fix a leaking tap, couldn't put up a shelf, and rather preferred listening to music, because the sound of music made him imagine the scenes where he was the king of the world, Ziggy Stardust in bright blue jeans with long hair and not a duffer from Basildon named Martin Gore. And after Basildon, in Berlin, the shelf became even less fitting into his new picture of the world.

“I think that people, well, let’s say me or you, don’t have to limit themselves to seeing solely each other and no one else to be happy,” he said to his girlfriend Anne over a cup of Earl Grey at breakfast. She gagged on her tea and stared at him with frightened eyes.

“You don’t love me?” Anne asked, so predictably, and walked over to the sink.

“I didn’t say that.”

Martin regretted his wording right away. Anyone else would start assuring her that of course he loved her, embracing her waist from behind, kissing her neck, whispering ‘honey’, ‘darling’ and ‘sweetheart’ against her earlobe. But Martin just couldn’t do that, feeling that Anne was farther from his orbital curve than Proteus was from Earth. That she would never understand that sex was just another kind of pleasure for him like fancy food or fine wine. Of course, everyone had favorite food, but could anything compare to the orgasm of taste buds that touch a new, indescribably delicious dish?         

He wanted love, but he knew that love was some great reward that one couldn’t buy in a supermarket. True love was hidden from his vision, he had no idea how it was different from what he felt towards Anne or any other girl in his bed, except for it all lacked some critical, vital component. So he wasn’t much surprised when Anne left him. But the search for the answer to the question that firmly infested his mind didn't let him sleep, or eat, or, what was worse, work.

Least of all he expected to find the answer where he found it.

At first he wasn’t fond of the idea to share a hotel room with Alan, although Miller, for god knew what reason, insisted on it. Martin was planning to raid the bar after a nice contrast shower but as soon as he turned the tap off, his ears were pierced with a tune as simple and beautiful as white lily petals at dawn.

He slowly walked into the room and, enchanted, for a whole minute watched Alan’s peaceful face and his long fingers that lightly danced over the piano keys. Martin’s breath was taken away, his chest became tight with an unbearable aspiration to sing. He didn’t think; just opened his mouth and sang the song he hadn’t been going to show anyone. But in that marble room washed in the bronze of Berlin sunset, next to such an open and suddenly dear Alan he forgot the mistrust.

When Alan opened his eyes they seemed green and there was such an attractive spark in them that Martin couldn’t look away. His heart plunged in sweet delight, and suddenly he got a feeling that once abstract lyrics of his song were coming to life right that moment.

 

_But when I'm asleep_

_I want somebody_

_Who will put their arms around me_

_And_ _kiss_ _me_ _tenderly_

 

That what it was. His head spun and he made an effort to convince himself it was champagne’s fault. Alan argued with him about some rubbish but kept showing off his crooked teeth in a smile that became somewhat very charming. They had disagreed on so many things, their quarrels in the studio had no end, but when Alan raised his hand with the camera in it to take a shot, Martin at once realized: understanding. Understanding was that exact thing he’d longed for. And perhaps Alan didn't agree with his way of thinking, but Martin sensed in his gut that this former tour keyboardist, nothing more than a sly and not always pleasant stranger – it was him who was able to understand Martin.

And then, Alan’s hand lay upon his curls with such tenderness as if it had always belonged there, and Martin, simple and easy, like cracking a maths problem from an elementary school textbook, understood: that was how love felt.

Needless to say he chickened out when Alan wrapped him in a warm embrace and left a meek yet burning kiss on his forehead. Something seethed in Martin’s chest, he was ready to sell his soul for the chance to lift his head and lock their lips, but his brain was repelling like a rock-drill, saying that they both were men, that Alan had a girlfriend, that they were colleagues, famous musicians; god damn it, it was so wrong.   

It cost Martin Herculean effort to break away from Alan’s body that was touching his with fair innocence but was so enormously tempting. He couldn’t get a wink of sleep the whole night because of fear and excitement, of yearning and tenderness pooling in his heart, and of joy that made him smile widely into the pillow. It was a wonderful, incomparable emotion and even though by the morning Martin was desperately trying to banish it, seeing Alan’s disheveled hair and his drowsy profile, so soft and for some reason dear – god, beloved! – he couldn’t get it out of his head anymore.

Writing lyrics about love appeared to be much less sinuous than hymns in honor of acute social problems. Even when Martin didn’t write directly about love, love always found its way to his poetry, gently lying down in between his lines. He didn’t think of a certain anyone, no, not even about Alan. Poems just flowed from his soul through the fingertips and onto the paper while he wistfully chewed on a pen.

Yet sometimes he couldn’t deny a desperate call in one or another piece.

Dave was standing in the cubicle, casting his eyelashes in a poignant manner that gave him a magnetic aura, and tapped his long nail against the headphones.     

 

_I'm not going down on my knees,_

_Begging you to adore me_

_Can't you see it's misery_

_And torture for me_

_When I'm misunderstood_

_Try as hard as you can, I've tried as hard as I could_

_To make you see_

_How important it is for me_

 

Martin didn't mean to stare at Alan who sat at the controls. He was working with a cigarette between his dry lips, pushing the buttons and turning the faders without a blink of an eye. Miller was holding down his breath behind their backs, like it was him and not Dave in the cubicle. Martin watched Alan’s hands and for a brief moment it seemed that his pinky quivered at the line ‘In situations like these’. Crossing his legs under a way too tight leather skirt, Martin elbowed the panel and grinned to the face of the clueless Alan. 

However, at the line ‘Understand me’ Wilder stopped the recording and, swearing heavily, gestured Dave to get out of the cubicle. Martin watched their mutual annoyance with estranged curiosity.

“In the words of Stanislavsky, Dave, ‘I don’t believe’,” Alan said, racking his fingers through the messy hair. “Sing higher, I don’t know, with more feeling. Like your life depends on the outcome of this situation, on whether she’d understand you or not.”

“Because now you sound like you’re pressing a virgin for a heated fuck in the alley.” Miller nodded.

Deep down Martin found their interpretations hilarious, but he got his act together. It stopped being funny when all three of them at once turned to him and stared like wolves at a sheep.

“Bloody hell, what are we talking about?” Alan chuckled and grabbed Martin’s shoulder, trying to pull him up. “Come on, sir Poet, it’s time for you to show us your delicate and fragile soul.”

The cohesive team worked together to confront Martin’s absolute unwillingness to record. Miller, cursing and whining that he wasn’t an errand boy, flew to the nearest pub for some lager, while Andy was massaging Martin’s shoulders and Dave entertained him with dirty jokes. Alan didn’t take part in that connivance, leaving the studio with a squeamish roll of his eyes. But he was back for the recording and watched Martin with such reverence while he sang his short party that all at once it became obvious to Martin: it had been a two-player game.

Sometimes Martin wanted to throw his pride to the winds along with a horde of prejudices drilled into his brain, and he was dangerously close to cross the line when one night in a club drunk Alan asked him for a dance. The press of his body onto Martin’s was so unambiguous that Martin barely killed the whim to devour him with a kiss. He wanted to laugh at Madonna’s coquettish pretense to be a virgin touched for the very first time. And it all would’ve been so funny if not for Alan’s curt words on his wish to start his own side project.

“So? You want me to stop you? To beg you on my knees?”

Martin recoiled like a scalded cat and drilled him with an icy stare. And although Alan was taller, he dropped his eyes. He looked just like a mischievous puppy whom the owner caught out gnawing on a new cushion.

“No. Just thought I’d inform you of my plans.”      

It was noisy but Martin didn’t fail to distinguish sadness and pain in his subdued voice. He was starting to get angry at the fact that Alan, essentially, was manipulating him. It was evident that Wilder knew how Martin would react at a lunge like that. But Martin wasn’t going to surrender, though, truth be told, all he wished was to plunge back into Alan’s embrace and whisper ‘Don’t leave’ into his ear.

Martin was afraid to lose Alan. One thing was that they couldn’t be together in flesh, but an entirely different matter was not to have him at an arm stretch, not to feel Alan’s unobtrusive presence in his life. Of course, Alan wasn’t going to leave the band. But the dull pain that pierced Martin’s chest that night didn’t go away. Again and again he felt lonesome, helpless and weak. And hated himself for that.

Albeit understanding lacked in his life, there had always been acceptance. Acceptance epitomized in Andy Fletcher. Back from their school years his friend had never asked any unwanted questions, listened quietly and only a couple of times invited Martin to the church, which failed to impress him.

“I love him.”

At another post-gig night they decided to stay in the hotel room and, having drunk a little too much, Martin cried sitting on Andy’s bed and hiding his face in his hand. Andy thoughtfully smoked a cigarette, awaiting the continuation of the story, but got only muffled sobs in response.   

“Well, I can’t say I approve of your choice,” finally said Andy, winding an arm around Martin’s shoulders and pulling him onto himself. “But, for heaven’s sake, why are you telling this to me and not to him?”

“It’s wrong,” Martin mumbled, nuzzling his friend’s chest.

“Huh, of fucking course it’s wrong, but has this ever stopped you?”

Martin reflected deeply on what was the true reason of his hesitation. And every time he’d hit the same barrier: pride. If he had been wrong all along and Alan would reject him, Martin wouldn’t be able to look in the mirror without contempt ever again. But one sultry night in Tokyo he found out that there was no turning back for either of them.

“You’ve got a death wish? Idiot!”

Alan glared at him with a veil of tears in his eyes. He was scared to death. Martin freaked out, finding himself in that situation; he didn’t mean to do it, had no intention of drowning himself. It kind of just happened so: at some point he’d lost count of taken alcohol wallowing in own futility, and blacked out. But realizing that Alan had just saved his life, Martin couldn’t pull through his emotions anymore. Everything was falling apart and he didn’t care where this ride would get him. He just wanted to be in Alan’s arms and hold on to him, and the rest of the world could go fuck itself.    

So he finally said what he’d been dying to say for so long. And the gaze Alan regarded him with, full of adoration, devotion and desire; that gaze visited Martin in his dreams many times after. How mad he was that his stomach betrayed him at the critical moment! Pulled back at full speed! It appeared that the fear of the unknown was rooted in him deeper than the soul-wounding razor of his cosmic longing for love. 

It was impossible to simply get back to that matter, and Martin spent long weeks plotting at least an artificial moment of intimacy. Having worked up the courage, he came straight to Alan’s place. Perhaps it was the boldest move he could’ve made, because Alan’s girlfriend, Jeri, smelt a rat right away and gnashed her teeth at Martin like a hyena. Apparently the legends about women’s intuition didn’t lie.

Even though he didn’t manage to recreate a certain moment (maybe he picked a wrong method, maybe more pressure was required to crack Alan’s shell), he was pleased with himself for saving his face. Like the distance between them remained but now a railway was constructed from point A to point B and the express train could ride back and forth. At least it was how Martin saw it.

How he saw it until the tension between them built up again, as if those moments of clarity never existed, as if that Berlin night and the picture in bed belonged in another life. Alan’s fight with Andy didn’t help either, and the worst were the words he told Martin in a fit of temper. Creative wrangles had become a norm for them long ago, after all they were so profoundly unlike, but they had always been a force that helped to erase the limits and open the path for experiments in music. The day Martin brought a new ballad to the studio Alan’s reaction drove him so crazy he simply wanted to strangle him.

He hated how Alan roped on his ownership to his songs. Like he thought that he had the right to change everything he didn’t like. He’d already had Recoil and wrote strange music for it, music that Martin wasn’t particularly fond of. Then why the hell he wanted to tear apart, stir up, strip down, chew and spit out every single detail in Martin’s songs, in the songs that weren’t all that bad to begin with? Why did he keep trying to change Martin, to get under his skin and set the heather on fire in his soul just because he, Alan, wanted so?

With a resolute intent to kill that bastard, Martin came down to the alley behind the studio. Least of all he expected their fight – so logical, natural, as if they were born to beat the shit out of each other that day – to morph into what it ended in. He was shocked, his heart was leaping in his throat, he was suffocating of emotions and kisses, trembled of realization of that new reality, he wanted to cry of the view of Alan’s tears and his heartfelt words:

“I hate you. I hate you.”

And it was hate, but its vector was lashing from point A to point B like a shot, so Martin didn’t doubt for a second what it really was. He was hurt by the fact that Alan finally won and maintained his dignity – Jesus, how proud they both were! But the game was over. And truly, nobody was the winner. The winner was each. Martin took Alan’s face with shivery tentativeness and clasped him to his heart, not wanting to let him go ever again, showering his forehead in kisses, stroking his hair and listening to his wavy breath.

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” Alan whispered, clinging onto his T-shirt.

“Me too.”

They gazed at each other as if for the first time and burst out laughing. In tears, with bruised lip corners, with their pants lowered, under the drizzling rain in the dark alley where the only beacon of light was the neon sign of a bar. They kissed god knew for how long, both unwilling to get their hands off each other. Track of time was lost, and when they remembered about the lads waiting for them back in the studio they still couldn’t wipe away wide grins from their beaten up faces.

“Are you fucking nuts?!” Miller yelped as soon as they tumbled into the room, wearing the same idiotic smiles.

“Yes,” Martin said simply, and Alan nodded with enthusiasm which caused instant burst of laughter from Dave and a half-an-hour-long rant from Miller, who was saying that if they planned to murder each other he refused to deal with insurances and wouldn’t even attend the funeral. Alan calmly assured him that he and Martin had reached a creative compromise and were ready to work hard on the song together till the dawn broke. For what, of course, they had to stir Andy awake (poor bloke was snoring on the couch) and shoo the whole lot away. Needless to say, they didn’t get to work that night.         

 

*******

 

Milan wasn’t the most peaceful place, especially when it was about a stroll with Dave. Martin could only guess what his reckless mate was on, for he was able to turn even a harmless trip to a supermarket into buffoonery. He whistled after every skirt, no matter if there was a giant hairy hand resting on it. Gahan seemed to ignore the sullen biker, making obscene gestures with his hands and tongue at his laughing red-haired girlfriend.

“Dave, come on,” Martin hissed. He would’ve grabbed his raving lad by an elbow and led him away if not for a sizeable bag with groceries in his arms. But Dave didn’t hear him, or didn’t listen. Like a tomcat, he headed to the pair in a ballsy pace. Whistled. For a moment Martin thought to fall off the radar before it would become too late.

“Hey cookie, do you wanna take a ride on my Harley?” Dave playfully arched his eyebrows and shouldered a pole.  

Martin's blood ran cold when he noticed the big guy next to the 'cookie' reaching to his inside pocket. He could swear he saw a blade of a jack-knife flashing in the rays of the sunset. Jumping up to Dave, Martin yelped at him that their last bus was about to go off and then, in a very broken Italian, apologized for his tipsy friend and expressed his regret about his behavior. The redhead kept giggling through the whole speech.

The big guy withdrew the knife but didn’t drop the tough look.

“You have three seconds to get out of my face,” he barked. Dave had already showed heels before the jock finished, and with immense fear Martin dashed after him, catching the following roar: “Fucking British faggots!”

Dave ran around the corner and startled, panting and propping his hands to his knees. Martin pressed his back to the wall, holding onto the bag for dear life.

“Shall we go back and beat his arse for ‘British faggots’?” Dave laughed.

Martin did want to go back but only to borrow the knife from the biker.

In the slow as snail bus Dave didn’t lose an opportunity to comment on every passenger. That one had a really funny moustache, oh pardon me, it was a lady. Martin wished to disappear into the earth, and when the door finally opened at their stop, he jumped out and rushed to the hotel without checking whether Dave had got out in one piece.

In the hotel’s hall he heard Dave running behind and asking him to go out for a drink, but Martin only sped up, choosing the stairs instead of the lift where he’d had to tolerate Dave for a few more minutes. He’d never run up the sixth floor so fast before.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

The pinewood door opened so abruptly like the resident of the room had been standing behind it waiting for him. As soon as Martin came inside, Alan shut the door and shoved him with his back to it, kissing his mouth and pressing his hands next to the each side of Martin’s head. In the urge to wrap his arms around Alan’s neck to deepen the kiss, Martin nearly forgot about the bag with glass bottles inside.

“Wait a second!” He parted from his lips and broke into a nervous grin. “I brought wine.”

Alan drilled him with black eyes speaking that his craving wasn’t for drink. Carefully slipping out from under the press of Alan’s body, Martin put the bag on the floor and, with a wild cat’s grace, threw himself on him, clinging to Alan’s middle with his legs and winding his arms around his neck. Martin forced open his mouth with his tongue and felt how firmly Alan grasped his arse. Those were deep and heated kisses and they didn’t stop until both were out of breath. Well, they still had to have dinner.  

Martin sat on a blue velvet couch and was switching radio stations while Alan was making them cheese and avocado sandwiches.

“One day Dave will have us all killed,” Martin said, taking the glass of wine Alan handed him.

“What did he do now?”

Alan’s voice was of a disappointed mother wronged by her naughty child once again, and Martin couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Nothing new, just hit on a girl whose thug-looking boyfriend stood right next to her.”

“Ah, Gahan’s prank number 627,” Alan commented with a look of a college professor and plopped down the couch beside Martin. His shirt was unbuttoned on his chest and while he was chewing his sandwich a breadcrumb fell into his cleavage. Without second thought, Martin sank his fingers into it and fished out the foreign object under the intense gaze of Alan’s now turbid-grey eyes.

“That twat takes something for sure.” Unabashed, Martin put the breadcrumb into his mouth and took a sip of wine. “Shit must be hard drugs.”

Alan sighed and with the naturalness of a certified smooth operator reached the backrest just a cetrimetre away from Martin’s shoulder.

“I’ve noticed. But it’s his life. He’s my friend, but I’m not going to pry into his affairs and force him to get a grip. He isn’t a kid, you know, he’s nearly thirty.”

Soon enough Dave was forgotten and they immersed into discussing the music on the radio. The less wine was left the closer they moved towards each other, and the pleasant tipsiness conjoined with that dear sensation of the other body close and warm in its proximity. The third bottle had neared the end when the radio started playing _Modern Love_.

“Louder!” Martin shouted, grinning from ear to ear and springing up to his feet that started to move to the favorite rhythm.

Alan didn’t need to be told twice; he turned up the volume to the max and the regulator made a distinctive snap. Rakishly shimmying his shoulders, Alan started to sing along with Bowie and moving up to the dancing Martin. They locked their fingers, dancing about together and singing the well-familiar lyrics louder and louder, smiling at each other with happy faces.

 

_Church on time terrifies me_

_Church on time makes me party_

_Church on time puts my trust in God and man_

Alan stepped back and Martin was about to revolt but a cunning smirk and fingers on the buttons of his shirt made him change his mind. Martin sat down and watched Alan dancing and slowly stripping off his shirt. God, he’d never thought before that something so simple and trivial could turn him on so badly. His throat went dry but he didn’t hurry to moisten it with wine, licking his lips and not taking his eyes off of Alan's neck and chest which he started to stroke with his palms.

A rush of blood made Martin stand up with a drive to tear off the rest of Alan's clothes. But Alan pushed him away with a playful chuckle so he fell back to the couch. Martin nodded and locked his hands together.

 

_It'_ _s_ _not_ _really_ _work_

_It's just the power to charm_

_Still standing in the wind_

_But I never wave bye-bye_

 

How hard it was to sit upright when Alan landed onto his lap and, jerking his legs in Elvis-like fashion, started to unzip his fly bit by bit. Although he didn’t go further than that and, with a shit-eating grin still in place, threaded his hands underneath Martin’s leather jacket to remove it and then grabbed the hem of Martin’s T-shirt.

Finally their bodies were touching skin on skin; Alan was burning, his chest damp with sweat, and instead of getting to his lips Martin leaned to the sensitive crook of his neck, barely grazing the skin with the tip of his tongue, rubbing Alan’s prominent shoulderblades with flat palms. He emitted a strained moan, more like a hush, but it was enough to understand that games were over.

Without minding the change in the radio’s programme, they made love, hungry and heartfelt, though not yet in haste. Somebody from the neighboring room banged to the wall, but it only stimulated them more, and Martin moaned louder, building up the swing of his hips, feeling Alan’s nails digging into his thighs with renewed force.

He loved to ride him simply because he could watch Alan’s spiritual face beneath; could feel how he craved to thrust deeper but kept failing because of the death grip of Martin’s legs. God damn it, he loved being in control so much. Almost lazily he moved back and forth instead of up and down, forcing Alan to slap his hips and arse and, of course, to beg.

“Come on, come on, baby, make me feel good,” he repeated like a spell, and his hoarse groan in the end of every word was so unlike his normal voice that Martin adored just the sound alone, inaccessible for anyone else for kilometres around. And, as if out of spite, but in reality just dying to prolong the pleasure that sizzled in every cell of his body, Martin froze on the spot to the chain of Alan’s breathy swearing and even more so tender prayers to stop this torture.

Sure enough, Alan didn’t let him be in control for long. Swiftly, like a slippery serpent, he withdrew his cock and edged out from under Martin’s body that was shaking from a sudden lack of stimulation and outrage. He was just about to come and the fact that Alan loved being begged no less than himself was driving him crazy.

Taking a sip from a glass that was more likely Martin’s than his own, Alan sat up to his knees and smiled matter-of-factly, peering at Martin’s quivering cock. Martin bit his lip and attempted to touch it, but Alan slapped his hand away. How predictable he was sometimes.

“Are you making fun of me,” Martin stated rather than asked. With a soft ‘uh-huh’ Alan clasped his wrists in his firm fingers and held them behind Martin’s back, sinking his lips into Martin’s. The taste of wine made Martin come round but the odd brush of their cocks against one another sent him to the far away orbit all over again.

“Stop it,” Martin groaned, while Alan was covering his shoulder in kisses with tact of a gentleman.

“You want me to stop?”

He leaned away, arching his left brow in that typical half-sarcastic manner of his. Martin growled through clenched teeth, trying to press tighter onto Alan’s body but he maintained a strategic distance.

“Come on, tell me what you want me to do to you,” he whispered now without a hint of a smile in a voice that made heat spread in Martin’s lower abdomen so hard it wasn’t the least bit of fun anymore. Keeping a face lost all its meaning.

“I want you. Take me, make me come, god, Al... do something already!”

And, without words, Alan pushed him down and kissed him, thrusting so deep and so fast that Martin nearly cried out into his mouth. Alan’s hands lashed across his body, he panted and moaned and kept calling him ‘my baby’ and other sweet nothings that in any other situation would’ve sickened Martin.

Martin clung onto him in a desperate urge to be closer, even though closer was impossible, but he wanted to dissolve into Alan’s skin. He whispered ‘more’ until the point of no return was reached with a burst of blood and an outcry of every muscle in him; he came all over his stomach and went limp. Alan only made a few more tough pounds, his face twisted in ecstasy of a blissful who had seen heaven. For a reason unknown Martin wanted to cry and he was glad that Alan hovered over him and kissed his lips, gently and awhile, lacing his fingers through Martin’s curls and snuggling to him with his relaxed body.

At dawn of the next day he didn’t find Alan next to him in bed and for a moment when he clasped the cold sheets in his hand he felt an icy prickle of panic. The room was bathed in gold rays; a drowsy buzz of the TV made Martin raise his head. Squinting his eyes from surfeit of light, he saw the naked back he knew centimetre by centimetre.

Usually he avoided any social engagements before a shower and a cup of tea, for what his ex-girlfriend Christina used to nag him about. But now, unbothered about the freshness of his breath or messy hair, Martin crawled from the bed to the couch and curled next to Alan. Simply like it was meant to be this way, Alan threw an arm around his shoulders and pressed him close to his warm body. His eyelashes looked pale in the rays of lazy sun and his pointed nose was particularly standing out against the light curtains. His sky-blue eye was fixed on the screen where a half-naked girl was smoking on a bed with her legs up in the air while her lover was putting on his jeans.

“What’s the film about?” Martin asked. Not that he cared, but he wanted to hear the morning hoarseness of Alan’s voice.

“A crime drama, I guess.”

“Mm.”

Placing his head on Alan's shoulder, Martin watched his hand lying on his knee like it belonged there. Those long pianist fingers caressed his skin with tenderness and no coyness. Those fingers knew his body well – every mole, every nook of it; they knew its compliance and where to touch to extract a certain sound from Martin almost as good as Alan knew how to extract a certain sound on an E-mu Emulator. Martin drooped his eyelids, not paying any attention to the dialogue of the crime drama lovers.

Yes, he could live like that. With Anne or Christina he had to watch out for every move and word, think twice, plan each next step. With Alan he could simply sit together without thinking how he looked or what impression he gave. And he didn’t even need to give any impression: they both knew what they wanted, and maybe because they were men it felt more comfortable this way.

For Martin it did for sure. Never before he’d thought that he could feel so cozy with another man, like he was all by himself but at the same time with someone who understood him without words. Who understood his feelings. And as soon as that thought took clear shape in his mind, an inexplicable anxiety like a storm out of the blue captured his existence and he felt a sharp pain in his chest.

He slightly leaned away from Alan, avoiding to look at his face because that face was a reminder of his fundamental weakness that he feared like a stranger in a dark alleyway. Would he get a knife stab or would that stranger just ask him for a cigarette? Perhaps it was wiser to back off before that weakness would hunt him down and perpetrate something he didn't even dare to imagine.    


	4. Hide what you have to hide and tell what you have to tell

America received every gig of theirs with ravishment of a dying man in a desert who had finally reached an oasis. Martin couldn’t recollect every performance for he got bleary-eyed drunk before each one and it wasn’t any more possible to make a difference between all those roaring venues. It was easier this way, safer. Neither he remembered the state where Suzanne arrived to see him – the scarlet mouth, the black satin dress, the mystique shadow of her eyelashes; her silhouette sharply came into his vision from the hall leading to the dressing room, and golden rings flashed on her pale fingers when she coyly waved at him through the crowd of stage workers.

Having sex before a gig was an unwritten taboo, but Martin really needed that. He didn’t think his performance was worse than usual, but the rest of the band squinted at him with disapproval.

But not Alan. Alan didn’t even look at him, like all the other evenings, afternoons, or whatever part of day. As if Martin didn’t exist. And, to remind him of his existence, Martin made Suzanne moan and cry out louder so not only the neighboring hotel room would hear, but the entire floor.

Her presence seemed to soothe Martin to some extent. When she was in his arms he didn’t sense the abysmal mouth of the beast opening and wanting to swallow him without chewing behind his back. But the anger wouldn’t go away. Quite the opposite, when Jeri joined Alan on tour, Martin took it as a personal affront and a plot against him. His teeth ground when he was forced to watch that woman sitting in Alan’s lap and stroking his hair back. It was stupid and senseless to get jealous over his wife, given that Martin used every opportunity to show off his own girlfriend. And at moments like those he snuggled and clung to her waist with even more passion.

Then Alan wasn’t the only one who followed his example and invited his wife on tour. Andy, who rarely even mentioned his Grainne – they had been together since the creation of the world and, as it had always seemed to Martin, weren’t madly in love with each other – now spent all his free time with her. He stopped attending parties and performed absolutely sober. And it hit Martin that perhaps Alan wasn’t doing everything out of spite to him. The four of them were just growing apart all at once.

Nobody knew where the hell Dave was most of the time. Jo didn’t come with him, which was especially odd after the last tour when he was fussing around her and Jack like mother hen. Off stage Dave was irritable and morose, he often yelled at help staff for not properly complying His Majesty’s caprices which sometimes were way out of line. For instance, he wanted to be driven in a private limousine from a hotel to a venue. It was so unlike the former Dave who was shaking in hysterics before their first big gig, chain-smoking in front of the club entrance.

“Jesus, Mart, I want to die, we’re fucked! I can’t sing, I’m too wired!”

He grabbed Martin’s shoulders, staring at him in panic, as if waiting for a simple truth that would solve all his problems at once. But Martin himself was ready to curl up and disappear in the face of seizing terror. People were going to watch them! A lot of people! Vince, who emerged to the club’s porch with an unlit cigarette in his teeth, patted Dave’s back.

“Oh, come on, what can possibly go wrong? Worst case scenario we’ll be booed. Well, maybe they’ll throw garbage at us.”

It was astounding how things had changed through the decade that flashed before their eyes like a dream. Now nobody would’ve dared to boo a performance of the band that played the legendary _Personal Jesus_ , the song that the whole world sang along to. Now everybody reached their hands out, ready to embrace their faith once and for all. It was besotting; it was true visceral terror.

One night Martin came out to the front and, skimming through the blackness of expectantly silent crowd, touched the mic. And as soon as the first note left his lips, rolling through his lungs and throat and breaking free into this colossal abyss, cries of worship hit his ears clearly like never before. It was just for him, those hundreds of people echoing his words, waving their arms and lighters: there, in that seething darkness were people who loved him.

Suddenly he could make out every face: in the first row a long-haired girl was weeping aloud, her tears streaming down her cheeks in black rivers; a boy in the second row was yelling at the top of his lungs, reciting the song like a prayer. Every single person was reaching their hands out to him, and that immense energy enveloped him with a palpable, real touch, and the world full of nothing now had filled with force. Martin felt light; he didn’t have to drag his feet across the stage with labor of a leper anymore. His voice flowed from his soul, echoing in the heart of each human who gazed at him like at a god.    

Martin half-turned to the audience: let them remember every feature, every sparkle on his skin underneath the see-through top, every hair on his bare shins. And then he slowly, as if looking from the underworld, moved his eyes up to Alan. He wasn’t surprised when their eyes met: Alan knew all his parts by heart and didn’t look away from Martin.

 

_In a world full of nothing_

_Though it's not love_

_It means something_    

 

He didn’t make a single step towards the farther synthesizer but couldn’t deny himself the pleasure of pulling a coy smile at the finishing notes. The audience exploded; the crying girl was handing something out to the stage, but the ruthless security was pushing her back. Well, they wouldn’t be able to argue with God’s will.

Martin approached the edge of the stage – the arms around him reached out like tentacles, the shouts were deafening – and stretched his fingers out to the bouquet that the girl was holding up like the Olympic flame of her love. He purposefully squeezed her hand as soon as she let go of the flowers, gazing into her wide open, stunned eyes with a knowing smile. She lost consciousness when he released her hand, and the security hurried to catch her and stood her upright. How grand was the power of the God’s touch!

So that was what Dave felt. That was why he felt the right to demand special treatment. Martin got an urge to talk to him about it and barely could wait till the end of the gig. So, bowing and waving to his faithful followers, he sprung up to the dressing room.

But when Martin opened the door he froze in the face of a strange scene: Dave, drowning in tears and shouting something, was trying to break free from Alan’s arms, whose back was tense in resolution not to let him go. Not instantly Martin realized it was a hug, and only Dave’s shaky speech made him understand what was going on.

“I can’t, she can’t! She can’t leave me, we’ve been together long before all this, what does it matter who I fuck! Al, you tell!”

Helpless, he crumbled with his knees to the floor, his sobs growing quieter as he went limp in Alan’s hands. Alan squatted and pressed Dave’s head to his chest.

“Dave, you can’t be with two women. Things don’t work this way,” he said with a morbid involvement in his voice. Martin’s hand faltered on the door knob, an acid feeling of atrocious tackiness was spilling inside his skull. Dave stared at him in alert for a second and softened; his face writhed in a grimace of suffering more than before.

“Mart, come here, my lad!”

He couldn’t reject that call of a drowning man. Alan was looking at him over his shoulder, no expression on his face, lips a thin line. Martin lowered to his knees next to them, and Dave grabbed his neck with feeling, snuggling closer to him. Martin felt his tears on his skin while stroking his damp with sweat hair. And ever sharper he felt Alan’s eyes on himself.

“What happened?” Martin asked quietly, but didn’t get any response apart from Dave’s renewing sobs. Now silently, he asked Alan the same question. His face became sad and jaded.

“Jo found out about Teresa and wants a divorce,” Alan explained, clasping Dave’s shoulder in his fingers. Martin raised a puzzled brow, but instantly remembered Dave making out with that impressive blonde at every other party.

“Dave, it’s gonna be all right,” he whispered, trying to lift up his friend’s chin and look him in the eye. “Even if Jo leaves you, I mean, at worst, you love Teresa, don’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Dave said with sudden composure. He leaned back from both of them a bit, gripping their shoulders and for a long time just watched his own knees. “I don’t know, maybe… I’m lost. Tired. This tour is bloody damnation, I just want to go home and speak to her normally, not over the phone!”

And he carried on weeping, and Martin and Alan silently hugged him and exchanged glances, not knowing how else to comfort him. Perhaps it was once again someone’s sick sense of humor, but Martin keenly felt that Alan was sympathizing with Dave for the same reason Martin himself was, for their situations were so ironically alike.

The door creaked and let in their unfailing guardian angel Andy, who gathered the whole company in the long stretch of his arms and gave very sensible advice to return to the hotel and go to sleep right away.

So they didn’t loiter and went back. Suzanne didn’t wait for him and had fallen asleep right in her lacey white slip, like Juliet wearing her wedding dress at the cemetery.

Martin had been skimming through the attorney’s speech to the drowsy land surveyor K. for a long while. But his own sleep wouldn’t get him, and his attention was kept being drawn from the over-sophisticated and deliberately misleading lines to the monotonous bed screech from behind the wall. It hadn't ceased for half an hour now, and all of a sudden Martin was scalded with such an immense fury that he hurled the book to the wall and, just as he was – in a baggy T-shirt and boxer shorts – ran out of his room and pummeled the neighboring door.

Alan opened only after a few minutes, panting and closing up the hotel bathrobe he was wearing. Martin’s eye caught his сharacteristically reddish wrists, but it was nothing compared to the look he gave Martin. Full of hurt, alienation, speaking ‘leave’ – almost begging. Martin drilled him with spiteful eyes, but his anger was melting every passing second and his heart was beginning to tear into pieces. Hideous pain pierced his spine when he heard a displeased voice from the depth of the room:

“What’s wrong, darling?”

“It’s nothing, just neighbors complaining about the noise,” Alan answered to his wife without turning away from Martin. And, cutting off her vision with the door, leaned to Martin and grabbed his jaw, deliriously, senselessly kissing him in the lips. Martin slipped his hand inside the robe and squeezed Alan's naked thigh, soaking up its heat into his skin, short of breath and nearly losing his mind from the fire consuming his lungs.     

“Not in my room,” Alan mouthed, struggling to part from Martin’s lips.

“Not mine either,” Martin said just as quietly and locked his fingers around Alan’s cock. The fact that it was rock-hard and moist with vaginal juice made Martin suppress a gasp of at once overflowing him arousal. Oh no, he wasn’t dying of heartbreak anymore, watching Alan’s eyes roll up and his mouth take an O-shape in ecstasy as Martin was jerking off his cock that he’d withdrawn from his wife mere moments ago. Without holding back a grin, Martin leaned to his ear and, grazing his earlobe with the tip of his tongue, murmured:

“But I don’t think there’s no vacant room in a whole hotel.”

Alan wasn’t breathing. His nostrils flared.

“Book the room. I’ll wait till Jeri falls asleep.”

Martin used the best of his theatrical skills while explaining to the receptionist that his girlfriend suddenly felt unwell and wanted to stay alone tonight. The man nodded at him with way too conspicuous understanding and kindly offered a penthouse room with a spectacular view and a full-size bed. 

“Rest well, sir,” he said with a markedly crooked smile, and for a second it seemed to Martin that the man had winked at him.

He wasn’t bothered about the view at all, but the bed was indeed king-sized. For the torturous forty minutes Martin was waiting with his arms tucked under his head, until the four indicative knocks shook his entire being, and he rushed to the door like a sprinter at the last lap.

Alan instantly brought down eager hugs and kisses on him, practically snatching off Martin’s clothes on their way to the bed; Alan himself was still wearing the robe and, as it felt, nothing underneath it.

With such ravishment Martin kissed every nook and cranny of his body, making Alan's chest heave and his mouth twist with sweet unrestrained moans. His hands wandered across Martin’s skin, grasping and stroking everything that could’ve been grasped and stroked. They were rolling each other over, struggling to straddle the one underneath until he’d shove the attacker back to his back with a pleased grin and climb on him.

It took Martin a tremendous effort to lock Alan’s wrists above his head and, distracting him – heated to the limit, back arching and thighs trembling – with a deep kiss, spread his knees wider apart and guided his cock with a precise hand motion. Alan gasped for air, cursing and trying to kick out and break free, but Martin grabbed his face and whispered into his gaping mouth:

“Be quiet, my baby, my dear, it’s going to feel good, I won’t hurt you, no, anyone but you, relax, yeah, move, yeah like this, good, oh good, keep going–”

The room drowned in their liquid groans, and Martin forgot himself and let go of Alan’s wrists, pressing his sweaty knees to his chest, gazing at him forehead-to-forehead. Alan’s fingers clawed his face; his wet teeth gleamed from under lustfully parted lips, those expressive eyes staring right into Martin’s soul begging him not to stop. Martin’s thrusts were deep and pointed, and with each slap of skin against skin his desire was growing to cosmic scale. That desire was tearing him apart; he was covering Alan’s face with kisses, grinding his body into mattress and feeling that Alan was lashing under him with responsive ecstasy, wanting him as much. Martin couldn’t take more of this drug bliss; he spat hot whispers and love words against Alan’s skin, worshipping him, calling him his sweetheart, his everything; and Alan would respond in kind.

Every muscle was sizzling in delusion, and he came on his last legs, not able to move a finger afterwards. No less beaten, Alan gave voice only after a few minutes of still, whining and shaking Martin’s shoulder.

“Fuck, my arse’s on fire,” he wheezed, and Martin carefully withdrew his softening cock. “Is that how you feel each time?”

Martin grinned against his collarbone.   

“Only did the first time. Well, it was also a bit painful later on, but not as much anymore.”

“Are you a masochist?”

Both of them burst out laughing, and Martin heavily rolled off Alan, lying to his side as Alan sank his fingers into his curls, massaging his head. Alan narrowed his eyes and his face dropped.

“Wait, didn’t you tell me that… um… you’d had it with a guy before me?”

Martin smiled at him in silence, caught his hand and pressed his lips to his knuckles. Alan rose on his elbow and grazed his thumb against Martin’s lips.

“You little bastard… Why did you lie? Did you think I’d respect you more because you’re more experienced than me?”

“To be honest, I didn’t really think back then,” Martin snickered and lowered his head to the pillow. “Thinking isn’t all that good, it gives me a headache.”

“I’ve actually long since noticed that it’s hardly your favorite activity.”

They hadn’t talked so at ease for the whole eight years of knowing each other like that night, half-sitting in bed, not letting their arms go off one another.

“We can rent a flat somewhere near London,” Alan theorized, scratching his chin that was beginning to break out in morning stubble. “I’ll tell Jeri we’re having some urgent recording session or something. Don’t know if she buys that, but I don’t think anything will ever occur to her. She’s smart but it just won’t cross her mind that me and you… that we have… something. But what about yours?”

“Hm?”

“Well, your French lingerie-loving girl. Aren’t you just married or what?”

A sharp and painful shot went through Martin’s head. In all honesty, he completely forgot about Suzanne, as if he and Alan were still in Italy and nothing between the recording of _Violator_ and the first leg of the tour had happened.  

“I…” Martin began, at once remembering why exactly he had never been keen on verbal conversations. “I probably – perhaps – _probably_ , I’ve promised something to her. But does it make any difference?”

Alan stared at him with remarkable outrage. Even rolled his eyes.

“Jesus Christ, mister Martin Lee Gore, what a shameless scoundrel you are! Deceiving an innocent maiden, taking a sin on your conscience!”

“You know, between the two of us it’s me who’s the innocent maiden. Mate, if only you saw what she does in bed.”

An intrigued arch of the left eyebrow. Oh, no.

“So, will you invite me to see for myself?”

However, it was still too early for thinking of returning home: the tour had been planned up until nearly the end of the year. But Martin liked to nurse this little dream about being together with Alan in England.

Awfully convenient was Suzanne's saying right before their departure for Montreal that she had urgent matters in Paris. She looked sorry for having to leave. Martin showed incredible cogency at their tearful farewell, and through the whole flight exchanged meaningful glances with Alan over a thick tome of Sartre. Jeri was napping on his shoulder.

All in all, that made Martin the only temporary bachelor in the group: Dave wouldn’t stop making out with Teresa in full view of the whole world, and Grainne was keeping Andy on a short leash. Truth be told, Martin started to miss the time when the four of them would get shitfaced in some nightclub or right in a hotel room. But everyone seemed to be preoccupied with other problems: Dave and Andy were strung and irritable on every occasion, which was so very unlike either of them. So the nights when Alan wasn’t able to slip past Big Brother’s watchful eye, Martin spent getting drunk at pompous parties.

It was hilarious how he could arrive wearing a crumpled football strip with hair that hadn’t seen a comb in a few days. And the people around were just laughable. All like one haughty, thinking they were better than others, throwing money around and showing off their wealth with every little detail. And how much they wanted to be his friends, for the halo of fame beckoned the fireflies.     

“Your talent never ceases to amaze me, mister Gore,” some infamous producer was speaking – Martin forgot his name right after the introduction. He was too busy stroking the thighs of two Vogue models sitting by each side of him. Loveliest creatures, Martin wanted to take their numbers for Suzanne – they’d look wonderful in her lingerie.

The producer went all out before finally asking Martin to collaborate with his label for some unchallenging job – just to write a couple of songs for a promising boysband. Martin nodded quite earnestly, offering him to take a pen.

“Write it down before I change my mind. All right, here it goes: “I'm never gonna dance again // Guilty feet have got no rhythm // Though it's easy to pretend // I know you're not a fool // Should've known better than to cheat a friend // And waste the chance that I've been given // So I'm never gonna dance again // The way I danced with you.”

At first he rushed to take it all down on a napkin with sheer enthusiasm, but then stared at Martin with acid in his gaze. The models liked his joke though; they laughed and toasted to Maestro’s effervescent sense of humor.

In mornings, which for Martin usually happened around 2 pm, he had a hard time coming to his senses. Once again waking up with splitting headache, he decided to stay this way and die right on the hotel’s messy bedsheets, praying to God aloud to rid him of this suffering. He even swore to quit drinking. But as soon as somebody knocked on the door and slipped in a well-familiar hand with a can of Budweiser, Martin forgot his prayers.

“Was it you singing in the hall at four in the morning?”

Without removing his jacket or sunglasses, Alan lay down, watching Martin gulping on beer.

“Might be. Frankly, I don’t remember. What was the song?”

“ _Then She Kissed Me_. Your repertoire.”   

“Oh, yeah. Linda asked me to sing something while they… damn, I forgot to ask for their numbers.”

Clicking his tongue, Alan rolled to his back and tucked his arms under his head.

“Don’t worry, not the last chicks ready to carry you wasted arse into bed.” He took off his glasses and, peering at his neatly clipped nails, bit onto a temple. “I have to say you’ve got what you wanted. Jeri is coming back to London.”

Martin couldn’t hide a joyful smile. The beer was forgotten, and he climbed with his feet onto the bed, shifting closer to Alan.

“Did she not like my impromptu gig? Do I sing better on stage?”

With a quiet sigh, Alan placed his head in Martin’s lap, and he raked his fingers through Alan’s heavily gelled hair.

“Well, she certainly can’t stand you, but the main reason is that she’s really tired of our schedule. She’s been suffering through a case of insomnia and constant noise and trips don’t help a bit.”

What a familiar feeling. For a second Martin felt sorry for her.

“Now then, you will have to carry my arse from clubs to hotels.”

“You wish!”

But they didn’t go to a club after the gig. Dave popped champagne right in the dressing room, and Martin and Alan got to celebrate yet another great performance in their hotel room. The feeling of overflowing happiness for he didn’t have to long for closure and hide anymore, moan in whispers and wait around the corner, was making Martin’s head lighter than any wine would do.

And however exciting that soul-burning obsession was, he treasured the regained tranquility no less. At the edging dawn they were lying face-to-face, Alan’s eyes drooped in exhaustion while Martin was finishing another cigarette and telling him about the book he’d read.

“And so, after all that existential ambivalence and pursuit, Roquentin ends up in a bistro where Sophie Tucker’s _Some of These Days_ is playing. The song fascinates him so much that all of a sudden he realizes: that’s it. That’s how one can last an eternity, to “wash themselves of the sin of existing”. He decides to write a novel, but, as it feels to me, it is music that appears to be the key to eternity. Music engraves the moment better than any camera that can distort the emotion and true movements of spirit in the sealed picture. We seal our voice with all its turmoil, and voice origins from one's chest, from the soul, you see? Don’t you think so, Al?”

“I think that you’re too bloody talkative for five o’clock in the morning,” Alan mumbled drowsily.  

All was pretty good. The only thing that bothered Martin was the complete lack of inspiration. On previous tours he used every opportunity to write the lyrics: on a bus, on a train, on a plane, even in hotel rooms over a cup of tea for breakfast. And it didn’t matter that ninety percent of those lyrics wouldn’t see the light of day, at least he’d always had something to choose from.

Was it really necessary to sweat it now though? _Violator_ had become their most successful album, and Miller hadn’t mentioned anything about a rough date to start the next record. And Martin wasn’t in the mood to force it. He had something to live and breathe.

He rarely was sober, be it alcoholic or sexual intoxication, sometimes drug – nothing serious, just for kicks. He felt good after a joint or a blotter tab and could sleep well. But at rare moments of complete isolation there would be a cry of heart making its way through the haze of his altered state, and Martin would get scared. Scared that he’d never be able to write something as brilliant as _Enjoy the Silence_ or _Personal Jesus_.

“Don’t worry about it,” Alan dispelled his doubts with composure of an old monk over the morning tea. “It’s impossible to write masterpieces all the time. I’ve said long ago that we should slow down our pace and concentrate on quality, not quantity.”

Martin snarled like a guardian dog at a stranger, frothing at the mouth to prove that it was much less possible to pull out some genius work out of his arse at the right time. Blamed Alan for that he stopped even trying to write songs anymore, even for Recoil he would only make the instrumentals. With weariness in his features, Alan asked not to touch this topic.

“I don’t want to fight with you this early in the morning,” he said with cold, slate-grey gaze. “I offered you to collaborate how many years ago? You turned me down.”

“I can’t write with somebody else,” Martin grumbled into his cup. “It’s an intimate process.”

Alan arched his right eyebrow, which from his body language translated to dismay and incomprehension.

“It’s hard to explain.” Martin held onto the cup as if trying to get its support. “Some things I just don’t want to share with anybody. They’re deeply personal, coming from… I don’t even know where exactly.”

“Control freak.”

Alan was lost in thought, picking the skin on his cheek like he always did when he was nervous. On the one hand, Martin wanted to object, but he had nothing up his sleeve to trump that. As a matter of fact, that was true. Martin wasn’t any good at controlling himself. But in his creation he was the king and God, and even though his peers could polish the end result, embellish the facade of his shrine, the foundation remained untouchable. Not even Alan could rebuild it.

After the roaring in a fit of religious fanaticism America, the band earned themselves a break. But even that was spent in countless interviews and TV lives. The world craved their hourly presence, and it wasn't clear anymore who was violating whom.

Martin hardly spent a week in Hertfordshire with Suzanne and didn’t even get to go to the mini-studio that Alan had rented for them. Apparently, that madman was knee-deep in work even on vacation.

“I’ve got a ton of new ideas,” he stated on the phone, sepulchral samples screeching on his background.

“I presume not for us,” Martin noted rather sarcastically and pressed the receiver firmer to his ear. Just a couple of metres away from him, Suzanne was making an omelet. Her jet-black hair cascaded down her breasts that were barely covered with an unbuttoned white shirt. She was shifting her feet, laidback in the way she was poking the egg mass with a spatula. Her perpetually painted mouth was parted, a pink bubble puffing between her glistening teeth. It burst with a loud pop, and Martin felt a familiar yearning spilling in his stomach.

“That’s right. Well, you can come and check for yourself.”

“Do you really want to know my opinion?”

Martin could barely hold back laughter, but he tried his best not to raise any suspicion. Of course, because the legend for Suzanne had it that he and his colleague were discussing some pressing matter of utmost importance. But he was well aware of that Alan would rather choke than present him raw Recoil demos, even more so, ask what he thought about them.

Alan let out a sharp breath on the other end of the line. The same moment Suzanne’s eyes shot up at Martin, and she flipped her hair with a gorgeous tilt of her head. It flowed like a dark river, shining bright even in the dim light of that vault of a room, making Martin remember its soft touch between his fingers.

“Not today. I’m busy, Al.”    

Alan said goodbye without further questions. It couldn’t have been the other way; that was how it should’ve been anyway, but all the same the harsh claws of a dawning grudge scratched Martin’s skin. If only Alan _asked_ him to come, he’d forget the dark rivers and the skittishly perching nipples in no time. If only he didn’t leave him a choice, presenting him with a fait accompli: I _need_ you, I want you now, come over right now immediately. But Alan was obscenely stubborn and cared too much about keeping his face to the utmost. Like it wasn’t enough to win him over just once; like his favor was ought to be earned each time from scratch.

The omelet was forgotten; Martin only had to push Suzanne’s shoulder a little bit – she didn’t mind, she had always been harmoniously responsive in his arms without losing herself. He balled the black silk of her hair around his fist, fucking her lovely mouth and smudging the red lipstick, and she loved it. She loved everything he did to her, and she never asked for more or spurred him, never complained about the pain, never called him ‘my baby’, never trembled in his embrace like she was about to die, never looked like she couldn’t have been any closer and at once farther from him. Everything was simple, and right, and awfully satisfying, to the last drop.

Perhaps Martin really loved Suzanne. And whenever he said these words to her his heart wouldn’t clench from the torture of Cerberus’ teeth. He didn’t question whether she loved him, although of course she said she did. Those were mere words, and by words he was unshaken. But the notion of being able to spoon her in bed without experiencing a cluster of paranoid fears that he wouldn’t find her next to him the morning after made him feel good. She didn’t raise that wild storm in him that appeared every moment he shared with Alan.

She didn’t come with Martin to the European leg, and he didn’t mind. The vehement kaleidoscope of gigs, parties and never-ending debaucheries smeared into a single chaotic blotch in front of his eyes. At least he wasn’t bored.

Everything turned upside-down at night in hotels, where an inevitable force drew him and Alan together.

He would often drink and lament. Drink to let the tears flow, cry to sober up and drink more – but when he was alone – alcohol didn’t help when he was with Alan. He burned on the inside; every touch, every kiss, every flesh-piercing, bone-wrenching caress – all that echoed with excruciating pain from the constant comprehension that however close they were at night, the morning would always come. Bound in a clot of bodies, lashing hands, in the agony of wide-open eyes and mouths, under the all-forgiving moonlight they could be themselves. But under the merciless sun they could never.

Every night resembled another: every bed with its crisp linen, every mirror on the opposite wall, a glass on a nightstand, a ficus, apathetic to their moans and vows – a city or country didn't make a difference, because every time they would end up in the same place. That place was the vale of soul-crashing sin, of all-absorbing grief for its inability to come into reality; the spiritual cell of the unforgiven, concealed at the very top of the ivory tower.

One chilly night in Madrid there were only two knocks at the door. Martin arched a brow and wormed out of bed with fair reluctance, putting on a hoodie. Andy stood at the door; he was wearing a crumpled suit. His hands were hidden in his pockets, he stamped his foot, and when he raised his eyes from his shoes at the creak of the door, Martin noticed how unhealthy his complexion was.

“May I come in?”

Martin nodded and, all hospitable, hurried to serve them some cognac. Plopping heavily on the edge of the bed, without further ado Andy grabbed the offered glass, emptied it and handed it back to Martin. He sat down next to Andy, tucking one leg under him and pouring his friend another drink.

Andy licked his lips, sighed, raked his fingers through his hair and locked his hands. His leg was still bouncy. Martin waited.  

“It’s just… I just…”

His voice broke off and he rushed at Martin, clinging to his neck and shoulders and weeping aloud. Martin froze as he was – with a bottle in one hand and a cognac-filled glass in the other. Not having another option to calm his friend down, Martin kissed his sweat-glistening forehead.

“All be damned,” Andy spoke. His voice quivered and hitched, but he pulled himself together and leaned back, adjusting his glasses and rubbing his eyes under them. “I’m sorry. I just can’t. I can’t do this anymore, Mart, I’m leaving. I’m fed up with all this, the bloody gigs, all that noise every time; I can’t sleep, can’t eat, I’m wired all the time – on stage, off stage, I see that fucking stage in my nightmares! It’s like I get paralyzed, my bloody fingers won’t move, I fuck up and it doesn’t mean shit that I can’t lift my eyes from the synth… I can’t stand this, I didn’t expect it to be this way when we started.”

He stopped to catch a shaky breath and snatched the bottle from Martin, sucking on it with vigor. His Adam’s apple leapt up and down, he squinted and tears flowed from the corners of his drooped eyelids. His cheekbone quirked; his whole body was beaten with rather serious tremor.

“Well, I can’t say I expected us to become so popular,” Martin mused and took two cigarettes, lit them up and handed one to his friend. “But it’s not all that bad. Yeah, it’s hard, but it’s good fun.”

“It’s no fun for me, mate. Not at all. It’s like, you know, like I’m being sucked into quicksand. I see all those people expecting something from us, and it fucking horrifies me. And I feel like I’m dying, even though nothing really hurts, I just don’t feel anything anymore.”

Martin felt like a bucket of ice-cold water was thrown over on him. He wouldn’t be surprised to hear such words from anyone else; he himself wasn’t free of similar thoughts at times. But that was Andy – the most sensible and demure of them, the one on whom everyone else could always rely. And now that unbreakable pillar of reason started to crack.

“Do you really want to leave?” Martin asked with caution.

Andy finished his smoke and gestured for another one. He just sat there for a while, watching the space in front of him with empty eyes and propped his thumbs to his chin before he spoke again.

“I don’t know. I would’ve left if the band didn’t mean so much to me. If you didn’t mean so much to me. But then, you do have someone else to give you support.”

“Hardly,” Martin chuckled bitterly.

 Andy waved his hand at him and stood up.

“All right, I’ll be going then. I’m sorry for this mess. Oh, and,” he turned to face Martin but his eyes were once again on his shoes, “I met Alan in the hall and asked him not to come to your room yet. So, um… don’t think that it was he who decided…”

With resolution, Martin got on his feet and clutched Andy in a firm hug. He flinched for a moment but instantly softened and let out a soft sob, wrapping his arms around Martin’s shoulders and pressing him to his chest with all tenderness he had in him.

“Andy, you’re my best friend and will always be one. If things are hard for you, I’ll understand, but I don’t want you to make such serious decision on a whim. There’s only a month left, get yourself together, lad. We’ll get back home and you’ll have the time to think it through.”

He couldn’t believe it was Andy asking him for help and not vice versa. Because those were the exact words he wanted to hear, Martin could see right through him and the way his friend relaxed and his breathing steadied told him that, indeed, he just needed reassurance. So often Martin was in that same position and Andy played his role of a therapist and a wise man so well. And now, when their roles became reversed, Martin felt guilty for not having been there for his friend when he needed it most.

That night Andy stayed with him. They spent a quiet evening watching football and reading, Andy lifted in spirits and was wittily commenting on the game like in the old days. About midnight somebody knocked at the door again, and Martin’s heart was stung with treacherous yearning. Perhaps it was written on his face as well, for Andy cast a questioning look at him, but Martin only shook his head and went for the door.

Alan looked bored to death with the game, so after a few beers he got up to leave. It wasn’t hard to miss a prick of jealousy in his metallic gaze when Martin went to see him off. All the same, they held hands and for a moment just stood in the doorway, looking down and stroking each other’s fingers.

Andy’s eloquent silence lasted long enough for Martin to stare at him with an unspoken question.

“Of course it’s not my business,” Andy scratched his ear. “But what about Suzanne?”

“I love her,” Martin answered, simple as that.

“And all this… with Alan?”

“I love him.”

With a heavy sigh Andy dug his fingers into the bridge of his nose, rubbing and pinching it.

“All right, I won’t nag you – it’s your life. But I just can’t wrap my head around it, how can you whore around with a colleague, who’s also, God forbid, a man, when you have such a nice girlfriend? Not to mention, a beautiful, smart and caring one.”

Martin’s reaction – a burst of laughter – was seemingly another thing Andy couldn’t wrap his head around. But Martin didn’t mind. He was too used to the lack of Andy’s understanding, but through his judgment shone nothing more than poorly hidden concern for his friend. They knew each other too well.

Having performed their last gig in Birmingham, they set off home, and Dave hardly said goodbye to the rest of the band as he rushed to America with Teresa. Daniel didn’t hurry to negotiate about the next recording: he was positive that they could rest on _Violator_ 's laurels for a long while now. Which wasn’t all that bad, though Martin was a bit worried to get bored at home.    

For Christmas Martin was thinking of throwing a grand party and stuff his vault with a speckled group of acquaintances, but Suzanne took him to Paris. It was strange to have just the two of them walking in the overcast, covered in wet snow city. Unusually quiet, even intimate. To his surprise, Martin liked such a turn of events. He liked how Suzanne smiled for the camera when he took pictures of her. Maybe cameras weren’t that bad, after all. In the shots her lovely red mouth contrasted the leaden sky so nicely.

Everything in Paris breathed some peculiar charm, and even the small, at first sight plain restaurant where Suzanne invited him in the evening was very pleasant. It was so nice of her to mind the menu and check it beforehand. And how stunning she looked tonight: the waves of her hair swept to the side, a flowing dress with thin shoulder-straps, new golden earrings. Martin got an immense urge to kiss her fingers to show his gratitude and overflowing affection. She laughed joyfully and took his hand in her warm palms.

“I’ve invited you here because I wanted to say something very important.” Her eyelashes fluttered. Good lord, that red smile of hers was so adorable.

“Anything you want, my angel.”

That ringing laugher again. The waiter poured Martin some champagne. Suzanne coyly shook her head. There was water in her glass. She only ordered a soup for the main course.

And then it hit Martin. White noise vibrated in his skull. Forgetting to breathe, he grabbed her hands. She smiled with the happiest smile he’d ever seen on her.

“Martin, we’re going to have a baby.”


	5. Cheating Judases, doubting Thomases

Impatience. It seemed that his life was at the edge of change. Every day he woke up with a feeling of a forgotten dream that escaped his memory at every attempt to focus on it, and the illusive presence of that dream filled him with thrilling hope.

But life wouldn’t change. When Martin’s mother revealed the truth about his father, at first the very deed of her lie aroused righteous fury in him: how traitorous and wrongful was her concealing the truth from him, all those years! What had she been trying to achieve with that – that he would die without learning it? That she would die long before genetics would indiscreetly expose the secret to him? For a few days that matter seized his whole being and he even called Dave, remembering how some years ago his lad anguished, unable to meet his real father.

For a brief moment that news stirred Martin’s usual routine, ripping him from the veil of regular alcohol intoxication. Sobriety had had a harsh association with pain and discomfort. The soft feather-bed of drunken stupor wrapped his consciousness with care, protecting him from unnecessary reflections.

So, his life didn’t change. Martin couldn’t wait to engage in his new role of a father and he was refurbishing one of the guest rooms into a baby’s room with exalted zeal: that was the only task Suzanne let him perform without her strict supervision. Even though he was born a fatherless disgrace, his daughter would have everything: happy childhood, expensive toys, parents’ attention – everything she could wish for. He didn’t sleep at nights, nursing the anticipation of moments when he’d be able to show his affection to that still unreasonable child, his flesh and blood, his closest one – oh, he wouldn't let go of her!

How excited he was for that change. It was the very beginning of summer, Suzanne got up abruptly in the middle of the night. His heart leapt in sweet agitation.

Martin wasn’t allowed to hold the newborn Viva, but he consoled himself with a thought that her mother wasn’t allowed that either – later, stand by. And he stood by, chain-smoking under the hospital windows through the night. His fingers trembled, he didn’t feel like sleeping.

The baby was a little beauty. Well, what else could she be? After all, she was his. Suzanne tenderly held her up to her chest, not taking her eyes off her. Martin was torn apart with joy on the inside, although he was annoyed with everyone fussing around the mother, like he had nothing to do with it. But finally he was given the permission to hold Viva. She was so warm, lively, even though ridiculous in her tininess – Martin couldn’t get over her and carefully held out his finger. But the teensy hand didn’t clasp it, and the girl’s face distorted in a panic-inducing grimace – what, did she not like him? She cried so horridly that Martin himself felt like crying. The nurse took the girl from him with an apprehensive look and asked him to leave because the baby and the mother needed some rest.  

Suzanne was soon discharged and kept Viva at the arm-length distance, barely letting Martin enter her room.

“You smell, no wonder she’s scared,” Suzanne said with reproach and grimaced when Martin tried to approach the cradle despite her warning. “Can you stop drinking at least in mornings?”

But how could he not drink when his consciousness was bursting with razors of black, ruthless terror? A new life set in this vault. He had a few days till thirty – half of his life had passed. Decidedly, Martin had more regrets than reasons for pride. Among all else, when he managed to grasp another hazed dream, cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He dreamt about Alan.

Alan didn’t belong in his universe anymore. Not where Martin became not yet a fully legitimate, but yet, a father. Now his love was pure and constructive, aimed at life, not death and destruction. Even though death had always seemed dearer to him. Was that the reason why Viva cried in his presence?

Having celebrated his thirtieth birthday (none of the bandmates accepted his invitation), Martin realized that he didn't feel any joy from parties anymore. His sleep pattern was getting worse: Suzanne would get up nightly and go to Viva, and the thoughts swarming in Martin’s head didn’t let him bat an eyelid till dawn. Sleeping pills sometimes helped, but also made Martin wake up later past noon in cold sweat with heavy breath. Hazy dreams morphed into nearly palpable nightmares, and he couldn’t wake up from them on his own will.

They were all somehow similar. A black figure chased him from the shadows, and when he sped up his pace, it impended faster, floating and shifting in space. Martin ran, shouted, but the figure already breathed down his neck. A dead end emerged in front of him, and he stopped, touching the cold stone and sliding down the wall to his knees. Something warm embraced him from behind and he saw dark fingers closing around his chest.

“Come,” whispered a well-familiar voice that he couldn’t quiet grasp was whose, “come home.”

The stone opened, forming into a door burnt on the edges. It emanated the chill of death, but Martin felt soul-filling joy. Resting his hand on the knob, he pushed it and woke up.

Around evening he raised his head from the notebook and headed to the studio in the garage to record a demo. The melody came to his mind instantly and listening it over he was hit with the memory of those long fingers on his chest. His whole being was shaken in a tendon-wrenching, hot urgency, and without further ado he picked up the phone.

To his surprise, Alan agreed to assist him in recording very casually, even though his tone was strictly formal.

On the assigned day Martin got up at six without alarm and had some coffee. Suzanne was still sleeping on the sofa in Viva’s room. She looked really worn out. Martin carefully bent over to look into the crib: Viva was peaceful in her sleep, her doll-like arms and legs spread wide apart.

At nine sharp a blue Mercedes parked on his driveway. From the porch Martin was watching Alan getting his equipment out of the trunk. Stretching, he lit up a cigarette and gave Martin a short wave.

“A rather dismal mansion you have here,” he commented as they entered the studio together.   

“It has great sound absorption. Want some coffee?”

Alan only had to listen  to the demo once before getting to work. His back hovered like a black shadow over the synthesizer, long fingers darting from the keyboard to controls. Martin was chain-smoking while watching his hands.

They didn’t exchange a single word until at lunch Suzanne came to the studio with a tray full of plates. A polite smile bloomed on Alan’s face, and he chatted her up while Martin was resetting the equipment. Suzanne laughed at Alan’s jokes and seemed reluctant to leave, so Martin had to point out that, actually, women weren’t allowed into the altar.       

“I wouldn’t get such a thin hint if I were her.” Alan broke into an acid smirk.

“Fortunately, she’s very understanding.”

Alan was chewing with concentration. For the first time that day his watery-blue eyes met Martin’s.

“Did you call Dave?” he asked in a strange voice, as if he wanted to say something entirely different.

“Uh-huh. He didn’t pick up. When did you last speak to him?”

Alan scratched his cheek and raised his right eyebrow.

“About two months ago. He said he was busy and would call me back.”

Martin made a humorless laugh.

“It’s fine. I wanted to sing this one myself anyway.”

By the night _Death’s Door_ was finished. Suzanne offered Alan to stay over for dinner but he respectfully declined.

Alan was already one leg in the car when he straightened and peered at Martin with that familiar painful crease between his brows. Martin’s gut shrank; at once he was dying to jump into that car and drive off with Alan somewhere far away, where nobody would be able to find them.

“Almost forgot,” Alan interrupted his train of thought. “Here.”

He took two packages out of the glove compartment box and placed them in Martin’s hands.

“The bigger one’s for you. Sorry that I couldn’t attend your birthday party.”

“It's nothing. You'd be bored to death anyway. I and Wayne threw an unauthorized Abba tribute gig.”

Alan rolled his eyes.

“Jesus, what inexcusable gaudiness.”

Martin held on to the packages, patting them like treasure.

“And the small one?”

“For baby-Gore. Young parents are never short of children’s stuff, are they.”

In the bigger package sat a leather-covered bible. What acrid irony. For all that, Alan hadn’t lost himself.

From that on Martin wasn’t able to squeeze out a single line. He slept worse and worse between parties and fatherly responsibilities (more formal rather than driven on higher love: to get Viva to the doctor, go shopping or watch Tom & Jerry with her while Suzanne was busy negotiating on her new collection); so eventually he opened the bible and soon was deeply immersed into its brutal cruelty. He wanted to discuss it with Andy: the bloke spent his whole childhood in church so he had to have an outstanding opinion on those events.

It appeared that Andy had been on vacation for some time – that was what Grainne called her husband’s voluntary hermitage over the phone. Dave, whom Martin called afterwards more out of habit, didn’t pick up.

Having read the bible, Martin got to rereading classic literature of religious subject and ran into a short novel by a Russian writer Andreev called _Judas Iscariot_ , where the apostle’s treachery was depicted in a light so different from the original that Martin felt genuine empathy for the poor man. Judas’ love for the messiah was portrayed in a far more comprehensive manner than in the bible, and all at once his motives became crystal-clear. He was envious, jealous, perhaps even narrow-minded, but his humanness was way more understandable than estranged coldness of his wise teacher. Something utterly ironic was in that view of their old story, something that wouldn’t go off Martin’s mind.

So he tried to write about that. About love that was humane, and because of that cruel. His former vision of love now seemed to be a part of this logical chain: love that craved understanding and acceptance collided with deceitful reality. Writing down the lyrics, Martin laughed bitterly: Alan wouldn’t have given him the Book of books in a fit of a meaningless caprice. That was exactly what he was trying to tell him, wasn’t it?

Very few songs came out good enough. They lacked something, something fundamental. He already felt that their new album would be ideologically tied up with faith even more than with love, and that its cohesiveness would be as never before well-accomplished.

It had been the second year on a break, and an inexplicable dread started to creep at him from behind. Would Depeche Mode be able to gather together again to create something new? And that fear was dispelled, as things go, with Miller’s call.

Flood had a brilliant idea: instead of renting a studio like they did with recording of _Violator_ , he proposed to rent a whole house and all together get to work on a new album there. Martin liked the idea; according to Dan, Alan did, too. Fletch voiced some second thoughts, but it wasn’t long before he agreed. It appeared to be the hardest to reach Dave with the proposal.

“What, again?” he drawled to the receiver. Martin couldn’t believe he was finally speaking to him.

“Yeah, we’re departing on Monday.”

“Dude, this sucks. I didn’t even have a chance to rest, ya know, just recovered from bronchitis.”

“Bronchitis? In LA?”

“Yeah.” Dave giggled, and so loudly that Martin had to hold the receiver out from his ear. “Teresa was fucking mad at me about it. But she fussed around me and constantly spoon-fed me cough syrup while I was lying dead in bed. Oh, Mart, she’s a bomb babe, like, you were totes right when ya told me the shit with Joe was real shady.”

“I don’t remember saying anything like this.” Martin pondered. It seemed that Dave became way too jaunty, and it wouldn’t be hard to talk him into the idea now.

But it was only his imagination. All three of them and then Flood and Miller had to take turns nearly begging Dave to go to Madrid with them.

“I’m not a bloody nursery nurse,” Dan ranted, blowing off the froth from his lager: they had hit one of the London’s pubs waiting for their flight that was due several hours.

Martin noticed how much his colleagues had changed. Andy’s face had got an earthy shade and dimples, his cheeks drooped like ones of a Basset Hound. He didn’t speak much and laughed with a metallic note. Alan had let his hair grow out – it was swept back and disheveled at his lower neck. In the corners of his eyes lay a web of wrinkles that slit his skin every time he smiled. But that was giving his smile some peculiar sincerity, and Martin felt warmth in his stomach.

“Looking good,” he said quietly to Alan when Miller had walked off to the restroom. They sat on the opposite sides of the table: Martin next to Andy and Alan next to Flood.

“You aren’t bad either.” Alan grinned with that familiar spark of sarcasm. “Even litres of peroxide and vodka can’t wash out a boyish charm.”

Flood darted a cautious look from one to the other, Andy hid a smirk in his palm. Martin burst out laughing, and not before long he and Alan were mocking each other like nothing had changed. Perhaps they could’ve stayed friends, after all.

The house Flood had chosen appeared to be a grand villa with wall-wide windows, a swimming pool in the backyard and spacey, light rooms inside. He did his bit bringing some equipment, and nobody got surprised when Alan settled next to a synth without having a proper look around the house.

They were waiting for Dave like for the second Rising. He only gave in to their persuasions after Andy called him saying that Depeche Mode as a whole Royal Household were on their knees waiting for the advent of His Majesty Sir Gahan for the recording of the new album’s vocal parts. Of course at first Dave said that ‘fucking Depeche Mode can fuck off and get shit done without a frontman’ because he, Dave Gahan himself, wasn’t going to sing in that ‘third-rate pop band’, and hang up with frenzy. But only five minutes later he called back, mumbling apologies and nearly crying, whining how he missed his dear friends and was going to the LA airport right now so they could already pop champagne and set the table. Having attentively listened out Andy’s retelling of their conversation, Alan dropped his face into his hand and sighed.

“All hell broke loose. He isn't even here yet but my head's already splitting apart from him.”

When Dave got out of the taxi, all three of them dropped their jaws. In front of them stood a skeleton-skinny, swaying in the wind, gleeful stranger with long tangled hair, glistening beard and dark bags below glowing eyes. Noticing his mates, Dave hooted and rushed onwards, throwing his arms wide open. Martin ended up the first to be squeezed in his hug – so firm that his spine creaked – and Dave got to kissing him in both cheeks with a look of a dog that hadn’t seen its owner for a year.

“Mart, my dude, you good-looker! A young daddy, aren’t ya, reached peak manhood! So do you appreciate sleep now?”

Dave trilled with laughter and shook him by the shoulders. Then let go of him and with the same vigor sprang at Alan, who was trying his best to squirm out of Dave’s kisses, but his grip was iron. Andy decided not to fight destiny and wrapped his arms around Dave before he could’ve shifted his attention from Alan.

He was spitting American slang non-stop. Truth be told, he wouldn’t shut up at all, going on and on about the dozens, if not hundreds, his new friends, and of course the ‘hot babe’ Teresa. For about an hour he hadn’t toned it down until Alan stood up from the table with resolve in his posture.

“All right, work’s not gonna do itself.”

They headed to the studio – a large living room stuffed with computers, synthesizers and other equipment. Alan got straight to a computer and, not wasting any time, put on the demo of _Condemnation_. Martin was sitting behind his back, stroking a guitar, Dave sat on the edge of the desk, Andy and Flood sat with their feet on a leather couch, hugging their knees like twins.

“What is this, a gospel?” Dave grimaced in the middle of the song.

“I thought the album will have a religious leitmotif.” Martin nodded. “I suppose a gospel fits just right, and would make a really refreshing sound with electronics.”    

Dave laughed so loudly that Alan’s fingers flinched on the keyboard.

“Dudes, that’s some bullshit. It’s so old-fashioned, Mart, bro, when did you last time turn on the TV? The US plays grunge, guys, grunge! We need to keep up with them, aren’t we fucking ‘fast fashion’?”

Alan coughed with eloquence.

“Dave, it doesn’t mean we have to cave in,” Martin said dryly. “Nirvana have their way, we have our own. I don’t see a reason to compare.”

Dave shrugged, looked around and shimmied off his blue checkered shirt. His skin was blotched with dozen of new tattoos.

“I’m not saying we have to emulate Nirvana or Pearl Jam. The dudes surely make mad amazing music, I was damn high from their performance when I saw it. Hella fucking rad boys! But, fuck, guys, this isn’t doing it. We need live instruments, more rock-sounding foundation.”

He idly walked up to the electric guitar and plopped into an armchair, tightening his fingers on the guitar’s neck. Martin felt a subtle poke to his ribs: Alan stared at him with such shock and incomprehension that Martin couldn't hold back a languished sigh.

“Depeche Mode isn’t a rock band,” finally voiced Andy while Dave was messing with the strings. “Of course it’s never bad to try something new, and I consider Martin’s proposal very reasonable and well-thought. He spent months developing the concept of the album.” A blatant lie, Martin wanted to add but didn’t. “What you’re offering, Dave, is a big step back. We decided not to rely on guitars twelve years ago, deeming them to be a relic of the past, and now you’re saying we have to follow trends. Have you ever thought that there are actual people out there listening to our music? Buying our records, which we have to sell? We can’t act on a whim.”

Dave’s gaze shot up at Andy with incinerating wrath. It seemed he was ready to murder him, just grab the guitar by its neck and smash it against his head. But at once he softened and turned to Alan with an affectionate smile of a kiss-up.

“Al, darling, what’s with that crap he’s talking about? C’mon, let’s show him.”

He stood up and circled the room.

“Where are the drums?”

Flood instantly butted in.

“I didn’t take them, I thought that a drum-machine would be enough.”

Again with that ringing, blood-curdling laughter. Perhaps it was his new hairstyle, but Dave’s face with baring sharp canines made him look like a vampire.

“Then go fetch them, sweetheart! Depeche Mode will play the fucking drums!”

And while Flood rushed to carry out the order of His Majesty, Martin and Andy picked up a guitar and a bass respectively, and Alan stood at a synthesizer.

Dave performed random American hits, the rest just jammed to the sync of his voice. It was good fun, and not bad. When in a couple hours a drum kit was delivered, hardly anyone had any objections to the spontaneous idea to make the sound heavier. Even Alan cheered up and looked at Dave with interest when he offered him to take his place at the drums.         

“I don’t think anyone else can pull this off,” Dave kept buttering him up, rubbing his back. “Come on, dear, rock the shit out of it!”

With deliberate discontent, Alan took off his shirt and picked the drum sticks: his bulging biceps tensed, neck strained, and not before long he started bouncing his head to the rhythm that was being cadenced by Martin's guitar. By the end of the session he heated up so much his T-shirt got rinsed with darkening sweat spots, his damp hair falling back to his forehead.  

“See, told you so!” Dave gave a joyful laugh and applauded. “What do you think, guys? Sounds bomb, doesn't it?”

Well, it did sound all right, and it was fun, but Martin was quite repugnant to the idea of making a dramatic turn to rock all of a sudden. It could make their style fresh and bring them a bigger following, indeed. But it was a risk, a zero-sum game. They could easily ruin a good album with such questionable experiments.

However, Martin kept all these thoughts to himself, only voicing a few to Andy at dinner.

“As if I don’t agree,” he sighed. “But arguing with him isn’t worth it.”

But Dave took the lead only that one time. Having got what he wanted, he didn’t bother anymore and was barely taking part in brain-storming or direct recording. He was busy hanging crucifixes all over the villa. Residing in the biggest room upstairs, he ordered to take all furniture out and dumped it with occult rubbish and Persian rugs. He never turned on the light but even in the daytime burned scented candles and nauseating incense sticks, the reek of which wafted into Martin’s room somehow through the walls.

Martin didn’t spend much time in his own, much humbler room: all nights long he partied in local clubs and slept mostly in the afternoon, in the studio where the hypnotic rhythm of the drums, bass and guitar would lull him without fail. Alan shifted from one instrument to another, replaying the same parts with scrupulousness of a maniac. He looked so immersed into work that a mere idea to interrupt him with talking seemed criminal. Although Martin didn’t really want to talk because napping on the leather couch was far more pleasant, which he did without fail, occasionally staring at the strained biceps of their freshman drummer.

One night Martin was all ears at Alan’s obstinate violation of samples for _Walking In My Shoes_ : it was a spine-curling, morbid motif, discouraging from having any fun. Alan seemed to be pretty worn out himself but didn’t look like he was going to take a break. Determined to support his colleague in this unequal battle, Martin had decided to stay at the villa tonight.

But his plans were altered by a storm which was Dave suddenly bursting into the studio.

“Oh, Mart, ain’t ya bored here?” He plopped next to him on the couch and put his arm around Martin's shoulders with an amused grin.

“I’m not really in the mood to go out,” Martin said and for a brief moment noticed Alan turning at him: his eyes were dark-grey and peered with a somewhat unreadable expression.

“Shit, that’s a buzz kill,” Dave whined. “I was gonna ask you to join me at a party in one dank club, some of my homeys will be there. Strip-tease, poker and all that shit included.”

The music died down. Without saying a word, Alan went out to the veranda, an ember of his cigarette flashed in the window. Without that sorrowful motif now Martin instantly felt his melancholy evaporating.

“All right. I’ll go change then.”

Dave cackled and rubbed his hands. And while Martin was going upstairs the excitement of an upcoming party gave him an idea.

“I need some time,” he shouted to Dave who was smoking downstairs with his back leaning to the banister.

“Okay! Wear something nice for a change my dude, I’m sick of your bike shorts.”

Oh, Dave had no idea how far his plan was from the bike shorts. Martin hadn’t worn a full drag for a while and wasn’t very keen on the prospect of meeting Dave’s friends if they were as rowdy as he was. Why not to make up an identity for one night then?

After a quick shower Martin put on particularly vulgar makeup with fake lashes and glittery eyeshadow. He swept a ponderous look across his wardrobe and pulled out a flowing silver dress with thin straps and a high slit. With a deeper thought, he took a set of lacy lingerie from Suzanne’s latest collection. Added a few bracelets and a golden necklace – didn't matter that his Adam’s apple was exposed, his leg and armpit hair would give away a man anyway but it was more fun this way. He put on a curled blonde wig and squeezed into black lacquered open-toe stilettos. Too bad he didn’t have a clutch. But checking himself out in the mirror he regarded

Angelique (that was his name for tonight) as utterly charming and having no use for any more accessories.       

Drums were heard from the room again. Standing in the doorway Martin glimpsed Dave impatiently bouncing his foot – he wore a stylish striped vest next to the skin, a pair of destroyed hip-huggers and pointed shoes.

“I’m ready,” Martin stated, propping his hand to his hip and grinning.

“Holy fucking shit!” Dave jumped up. The drums abruptly died out.

“My name’s Angelique,” Martin greeted, soft-spoken, and flapped his eyelashes. Dave took his hand and stooped to kiss his knuckles.

“You’re so fine, miss.”

He kept laughing but without any taunt, more like he anticipated the faces of his friends. Out of the corner of his eye Martin noticed Alan’s stern and heavy look on himself.

They had some gin for the road. In the taxi Dave kept showering Angelique with compliments that were dirty rather than spiritual, but Martin kept playing it cool.

The club was small and smoky and the company left a lot to be desired. Martin appeared to be the most fancy-dressed girl among the rest. Needless to say, Dave introduced Angelique as his girlfriend, and his friends stared at him like at a loony. Especially the ladies, all like one with black hair, chokers and thin pencil-drawn brows.

“How ‘bout a round of Black Jack?” offered a guy named Johnny.

The booze was far from luxurious but Martin didn’t care as long as it had above 40° alcohol volume. At the end of the first round Dave sat him on his lap.

Not instantly he realized what the bet was. Only when they started to pass something under the table and he saw a small packet in Dave’s hand it hit him what that was all about.

An hour later Dave went off to the restroom, leaving Martin among the harshly eyeing him strangers. He had an itch on his thigh, and looking down discovered with dread that Dave had tucked a card underneath his stocking.

“I need to powder my nose.” He smiled serenely at Mary and Joanne who rolled their eyes at him. God, should no one notice that bloody card!

He walked in the bathroom with an intent to strangle Dave on the spot and found him obliviously blowing a huge joint right next to a sink.

“Dave, are you nuts?” Martin barked in his normal low voice, impending at him with a thought if not to kill then at least maim him. “The fuck are you cheating for? And where did you get _this_?”

Coughing on an especially thick drag, Dave giggled.

“Ganked it from Johnny when he wasn’t looking. The junk they give you for a win is cut, you won't get throwed with it.”

Martin had no words. He dipped his fingers to his temples and sighed.

“All right, so you stole the weed from that musclehead and hid the cards on me. Don’t you understand we’re gonna get murdered for that?”

“Marty, dear, chill out! Here, blaze this shit.”

Without wiping away a relaxed smile, Dave shoved the joint between Martin’s lips. He picked it with his fingers and took a big drag. Sure it was some swell junk.

A few minutes later they were laughing their arses off, talking down the whole odd lot.

“That Johnny is a patsy! I hustled him back in LA more than once and he never noticed. He’s just a shooter. Too bad he doesn’t have any coke on him now, he had some dope shit in America but now has to lay low, ya know what I mean? Listen, I’ll get you some when we’re there! It’s real bomb!”   

Heavy footsteps sounded behind the door, and at once Dave and Martin became one clot of nerves.

“Fuck, they found us,” Dave mumbled, his eyes popping out.

The door creaked.

With a masterful motion of his hand, Dave grabbed Martin and pressed him with his back to the wall, placing his thigh between his own legs. His fingers like spider’s legs groped Martin’s rear, his mouth pressing dry against Martin’s neck. Instantly grasping Dave’s unelaborated plan, Martin hid the remains of the joint in his half-clutched fist and commenced to produce intricately wanton moans. Whoever the newcomer was, he hurried to leave, spitting curses. Still intact, Dave and Martin burst into hysterical laughter.

“Let’s bounce!” Dave said, taking one last drag from Martin’s hand.

They hollered all the way out, and while catching a taxi, and even in the car they couldn’t stop. Martin got hot; he snatched off his wig and dropped it somewhere to the floor. Dave was painting him a vivid picture of unbelievable somersaults Teresa was doing in bed and how amazing it was to ‘hit her from behind all throwed’.

“I once snorted coke right off her ass,” Dave sang, and Martin had tears in his eyes from laughter. “I’m saying it’s real shit when you’re high, ya know, you can cum, like, five times like it’s nothing. And the way she yells, man… that’s the shit! Listen.” For a moment he became serious and grabbed Martin by a shaking shoulder, but right then a devilish smirk broke out on his face. “Let’s go get some hoochies.”

Martin nodded with enthusiasm before he could proceed the offer: all this sex talk got him fairly turned on. But the problem was, he was still half-Angelique.

“Let’s drop by the villa first, I need to change.”

“Why? You’re looking mad fine.”

“I can’t hook up when I’m wearing a dress myself.”

Dave nearly butted his head against the back of driver’s seat from laughter.

“You fucking gentleman! Okay, chef, to the villa!”

When they arrived, Dave remained in the car shouting to Martin to hurry up. He became quite peckish, so taking off his shoes and carrying them in his hands, barefoot, Martin headed to the kitchen through the darkness of the house.

The way to the kitchen lay through the studio, and Martin least of all expected to run into someone at two o’clock in the morning. Alan’s slouched back was a distinct silhouette in front of the bluish computer screen. He was sitting with his feet on the chair, one hand propping his jaw, the other clicking the mouse. Martin couldn’t believe he was still working.

Perhaps it was weed that sharpened his senses, but at once he felt so sorry for Alan that his heart clenched and a bitter lump formed in his throat. Dropping his shoes to the couch, Martin quietly approached the desk and sat on its edge so barely a metre separated him from Alan.

“Al, go get some rest. You’re killing yourself.”

Not instantly he turned around, and a distinct plea to leave him alone was present in his weary gaze. It wasn’t just exhaustion; black morbidity drafted through his form and in every feature there was a shadow of something as inevitable as death.

“Why are you back so early?” Alan asked in a voice full of acid. “Emptied all the bars, or do the girls not spread for you?”  

Oddly enough, in any other situation Martin would’ve taken offence. Just left. But now it was as if he felt the pain that almost visibly pierced Alan. The web of wrinkles quivered on his cheekbone. His fingers clutched the mouse in an iron grip.

And then Alan cast a look to the hem of his dress. Martin had already forgotten he was wearing it, and now not only he became hyper-aware of it but also of the touch of the lace bra and panties on his skin. Alan’s eyes – black like burned coil – met his. The tip of his tongue darted across his dry lips. Martin barely contained a shaky breath.

Like these two years didn’t happen. Like he hadn’t become a husband and a father, like it wasn’t his own will to reject the embrace of this quicksand darkness that hurt him as much as it gave him pleasure in those hardships. What was he thinking? What nonsense, whom did he bargain with and for what? For what sake? Martin felt like laughing and sweet bitterness overflowed every cell of his body.

Propping his palms to the desk, he leaned back and slightly straddled his legs. Alan’s look didn’t leave him and Martin stoically withstood it. A dark spark flickered in those eyes. Alan's chest started to heave, even though he firmly held Martin’s gaze. But that Martin could fix.

Those panties had quite a provocative feature – one had to tug onto a ribbon on the side for them to slide down the thighs. How ironic was that it was Martin who gave that idea to Suzanne, and how enthusiastic she was about it. Well, empirical knowledge had always been more of his thing.

Slowly dragging his hand into the slit of the dress, Martin tugged the ribbon. The lace softly landed to the floor, followed by Alan’s eyes. Martin couldn’t suppress a grin when they shot up but lingered on the outline of Martin’s half-hard cock underneath the thin cloth.

“You look like a whore,” Alan said throatily. His whole body tensed, like one of a tiger before a leap.

“Just the way you like it.”

The victory was Martin's. So easy, like that unspoken dissension didn’t exist, that bitterly silent break up never happened, Alan stood upright and possessively, as if he owned him, grabbed Martin's chin with prehensile fingers. Their thighs didn’t brush, but Martin felt the heat of his body; the heat in which he longed to fuse and burn down to be reborn.

His mouth became so sensitive, tongue and gums itching, head spinning in the need to kiss Alan, to suck all air out of his lungs. But pressing closer to him Alan knocked him over to his back, still clenching his jaw, not letting him sit up while his other hand rushed to flip the hem of Martin’s dress. The shriek of an unzipping fly, warmth and hardness; Martin struggled to grab Alan’s shoulders to release himself from his grasp, but Alan only seized his face and thigh stronger. His eyes went pitch-black; he bit his lip so hard it turned white and Martin felt the head of his cock forcing in inside him, and the scald of pain hit him so bad he howled.

“Shut up,” Alan snapped and shifted his hand to cover Martin’s mouth in such a firm grip Martin could barely breathe.

He started fast and abrupt movements, hammering deep thrusts each of which was a torture. But what a sweet torture! Martin’s thighs trembled, his toes curled from the severity of each precise pound, and fog hazed his eyes. Alan panted and pummeled without mercy, fucking him violently, like a beast with intention to kill. Martin stopped struggling and melted, feeling a monstrous want filling him up, and its scale was much, much bigger than his body could contain; it went beyond his physical and spiritual essence and all he wished for was for Alan not to stop, ever. And he silently prayed for Alan to understand him even though he didn’t have to: Alan was moving like a hundred-ton piston. His hand on Martin’s face wavered, and the one on his thigh clenched so hard that his nails dug into the skin. And thus, beaten with shivers, he leaned in and profoundly, as if pouring his soul from one body to the other, kissed Martin in the lips.

They ended up on the floor – the desk clattered with such growl they had to leave it. Martin’s legs and insides hurt like hell, like he was thrown into a concrete mixer. It was dark but he caught a glimpse of blood. His dress had split open at the side seam.

Alan wouldn’t let go of his own face, rubbing and mashing it, as if trying to make it clean. He sat on the floor at a loss, with his pants lowered; his head turned left and right, he avoided to look at Martin. And then he sprang up, zipped up and marched off the studio. For a brief moment Martin noticed his face screwing in an anguished grimace.

Alan was crying.  

 

*******

 

_Open your sensitive mouth_

_Hold out your delicate hands_

_With such a sensitive mouth_

_I'm easy to see through_

_When I come up_

_When I rush_

_I rush for you_

Dave was being contorted with pain that seeped through every crease of his strained face. His voice was making blood run cold, sometimes breaking into despair, sometimes toning down in revulsion of a timid prayer.

Barely finishing recording, Alan put on the headphones, absorbed in listening through the result. Dave went upstairs without a word – he looked irritated and grim.

“This song requires something other than rock or blues sound,” Alan voiced his thoughts without turning away from the screen. It didn’t seem like he was waiting for side-opinions, rather was formalizing his own ideas to himself. “This one should be techno. Style variety will give the sound a fresh emotion, and with such raw vocals I don’t think anything else will work.”

He turned to Martin but still avoided looking at him directly.

“What do you think?”

Martin stared out of the window. The first day of summer happened to be quite sunny, and the smooth surface of water in the pool shimmered with promising coolness.

“I think it’s rather risky to jump from live instruments to electronics within just a few songs,” Andy interfered. “It’ll sound like we can’t make up our minds and tear around tradition and innovation.”

Alan regarded him with an icy gaze of unblinking eyes.

“Fletch, will you kindly remind me when I asked your opinion? I’m talking to Martin.”

Martin wasn’t going to talk to him. He stood up from the couch and headed to the kitchen. A kindling wrangle was heard from the studio.

“Fuck, Wilder, let’s forget it’s your birthday, you’re just intolerable these days. What’s got into you? First you won’t say a word, now you’re throwing a tantrum.”

“Because I’m bloody fed up with having to run after everyone and beg you lot to work! A bunch of fucking pansies; oh can you imagine, one is being forced to sing and the other to write music, Jesus Christ, what a burden! Are you blokes musicians or what?  

And that after they made an effort to wake up early and bake a birthday cake. It was Andy’s idea: a handmade present is always the best – that was what he said. While he was busy cooking, Dave and Martin took the responsibility to arrange a party. But once downstairs, Alan went black with anger.

“What bloody party are you talking about? All you twats want is drinking and fooling around, we have a recording session today!”

“But it's not like you turn thirty-three every day,” Dave grumbled. He was visibly hurt.

For a moment Alan took mercy on them and even sliced the cake, although he only took one tiny bite from his piece. Andy was frowning and staring at his nails.

“I must’ve overdone it with sugar,” he told Martin once they were alone smoking on the veranda.

All in all Alan ate and drank very little, and spent most of the time in front of the computer. Only in the afternoon he would lower to the couch with a torment plastered on his face, wistfully strumming the guitar strings.

So they had to cancel the party since it was the birthday boy’s will. But nobody really wanted to work in that heat.

Martin picked a cold can of beer and half-emptied it with one gulp. Rushed for it. He had bitter taste in his mouth but it wasn’t alcohol’s fault. Was it really so hard for Alan to understand?

A couple days later Anton came to take pictures of them. He had loads of ideas and even a concept for the cover design. His fervor infected the blokes like plague.  

“So, let’s pray to our Lord and Savior,” Dave said with a dark grin, crossing himself when they entered a small deserted chapel.

The atmosphere was incredibly fitting for the spirit of the album, and Anton wouldn’t cease commanding them to gather and split up, aiming his ever-present camera as he squatted or lay right on the cold stone floor. Andy looked peaceful: here he was in his element. Worn-looking Alan leaned to everything that was perpendicular to the floor. Dave sat down a bench with an open bible in his hand.

“You know,” he said to Martin as he sat next to him, “Jesus did good with that dying at thirty-three thing. Perfect timing. No point in wasting yourself for others longer. They don’t care.”

He was looking in front of himself and his eyes were fraught with misery so profound it seemed he would jump up and scream at any given moment. But of course he didn’t do that. Instead, Dave bowed his head and quietly, almost in whisper, said:

“I hope I won’t outlive him.”

Anton had a sensitive, fatherly-like reaction to Dave’s changed behavior. Even offered to stay on the villa for a while, but Andy tried to reason with him.

“You’ll go insane,” he said with a joyless chuckle as they were returning from the chapel.

Anton raised an eyebrow.

“But you haven’t.”

Andy burst out laughing, but that laughter lacked amusement. His shoulders trembled like in a fit.

“Not yet.”

Dave’s mood swings became old news soon and nobody got surprised anymore when he would lock himself in his room for days. But when one morning the lads didn’t find Alan in the studio, all three exchanged bewildered glances.

“Maybe he’s asleep,” Dave made a guess, taking a vacant seat in front of the console. “Exhaustion finally caught up, he’s been busting his ass enough.”

“But it’s ten o’clock.” Andy frowned. He was drinking black coffee and for some unknown reason kept clattering a spoon against the cup. There was nothing to stir in it.

“Let’s wait and see.”

Alan didn’t come downstairs for lunch, nor for dinner. Even though Martin still hadn’t forgiven him that obstinate neglect of truth, anxiety took over.

“Let’s at least knock at the door,” Martin finally proposed, putting his fork to the untouched whirls of spaghetti. Food only got stuck in his throat.

“What’s with you, Mart, are you worried about that dipshit?” Dave giggled. “I bet my ass he got crunk yesterday and now’s dead hangover.”

Martin felt blood rushing off his face.

“Don’t say that.”

Dave shifted his plate to the side, cupping his chin and staring at him with acute interest.

“I don’t think it’ll hurt to just check on him,” Andy saved the day. Dave’s eagle eye darted to him and Martin let out a breath.

“Oh, hell with you. Let me finish my shit at least.”

Alan’s room was located at the end of the hall upstairs. They walked quietly. Approaching, Dave put his finger to his lips and placed his ear to the door.

“Not a sound,” he whispered.

“Told you he’s asleep.” Andy nodded.

“Or dead. Al! Are you there?”

Dave’s shout made Martin flinch. For some reason his palms became so sweaty he had to wipe them off his shorts.

No response.

“Al, you motherfucker, just make a noise and I’ll fuck off!”

A barely audible, hushed groan sounded from the depths of the room, like the one producing it lay with his face to the pillow.

“Well, I guess he’s alive.”

Dave already turned to leave when Andy caught him by the shoulder and softly placed his other hand on the doorknob.

“Alan, we’re worried,” he said to the locked room. “Are you all right?”

This time no reaction followed, and Andy sighed with determination.

“I’m coming in.”

The room was nearly empty. The window was open and the wind flapped milky curtains. Above the bed, the white wall was notched with blackness of a crucifix. Alan was lying with his back to the door, curled up with his knees to his chest. Quiet groans were more audible in the room and recurred with mournful frequency.

Dave went round the bed and squatted before Alan, taking his hand. Andy sat on the bed behind him. Martin couldn’t move an inch and remained standing in the doorway. The black cross looked sinister but he couldn’t take his eyes off it.

“Does anything hurt?” Dave asked with unexpected tenderness in his voice.

“I’m dying.”

He was wheezing, and his voice was so alike that one, strained from moans morning voice that Martin loved so, but now it sounded without warmth, gloomy and obscure. As if somebody slowly sucked life out of Alan. Martin’s chest tightened and he walked out to the stair flight and lit up a cigarette. Fragments of a conversation reached him like in a blurry dream.

“How many fingers? Look at me. Here, at my finger. Okay, you’re fine.”

“I’m not.” That was Alan, sounding a bit firmer. “I… it’s… fuck…”

Andy left the room and headed downstairs. His face was incredibly calm, like he was playing his role of a big brother again.

“Where are you going?” Martin asked with concern.

“To call an ambulance.”

Because Alan struggled to explain what exactly hurt so bad, he was taken to the hospital. The whine of the siren smelled of death. It was strange that a sound had a smell, but Martin sensed it with clarity.

He couldn’t sleep, but the thought of going out was making him sick. Hanging around the unnaturally silent house, Martin picked a bottle of bourbon and went to Dave’s room. He opened without the usual squabble and, all hospitable, offered Martin to sit on an embroidered cushion.

“Remember you said something about death at thirty-three? Tell me more.”

   

 

*******

 

Symbiotic relationship didn’t exist between them anymore. The revealed truth about Dave’s heroin addiction built a ten-metre deep graff with a fortress around each band member. The villa became separated into four kingdoms with four different despot sovereigns. Alan, despite his kidney problems, wouldn’t leave the studio, and the malicious drum thunder sounded from it like declaration of war. Andy hardly ever stepped out of his room: he looked notably absent-minded as if he lived in his own internal world. Dave was wandering around for days god knew where – nobody dared to wonder what he was up to. At nights he would scream and whine and sometimes sounds of dull blows were heard from his room.  

Unable to relax and rest, Martin became addicted to sleeping pills. It became impossible to go to bed without them, but having taken some he could sleep 24 hours straight, awakening in complete disorientation and sometimes forgetting where he was. Dave screaming from the neighboring kingdom of plague and Sodom reminded him of the threadbare reality, so he hurried to withdraw somewhere farther away, where music played and alcohol flowed non-stop, and girls were always happy to go to some rundown motel with him.

But the album still hadn’t been finished. Flood, the messenger that wasn’t welcomed anywhere, would move between the warring parties to deliver a separate treaty.

“We need to record the vocals for _Judas_ ,” he told Martin, cautiously peaking his head into his room. He didn’t look like he wanted to enter.

“ _’We need’_ ,” Martin scoffed, dried down yet another bottle of whiskey and placed it on the dresser with a thud. “Who ‘we’? Mister Wilder’s orders?”

Flood rolled his eyes.

“If you’re still planning to release this damned album, everyone needs this. I don’t understand how you can be so indifferent to your own creation.”

He never said that he regretted his proposition to live together for recording of _Songs of Faith and Devotion_ , but it was crystal clear.

“I’m not in the mood,” Martin grumbled and turned back to the mirror.

Truth be told, he didn’t give a shit about the mood to record in. He knew that the moment he stood in front of the mic everything would come out on its own. But the idea of capitulation before Alan sickened him. Martin wanted Alan to beg him for help. At the same time he was well aware that pride would never allow Alan to go down on his knees, and sooner or later he’d come up with a plan how to make Martin sing without his direct request.

It took a week and a manipulation through the only person Martin couldn’t say ‘no’ to.  

“By golly, you all are trying to kill me.” Andy was sitting on his bed, long face and elbows propping to his wide-apart knees. “I haven’t heard this many insults in my life as he’s just slung on me.”

Something wavered in Martin’s chest. He looked at his friend’s haggard face, more precisely, a shadow of that face, and realized that hadn’t seen a smile on it for ages.

“Don’t listen to him. He’s just blowing up on you.”

Andy exhaled noisily.

“You know, the thing is, he is right. All my vocal parties suck; I can’t really play anything because I keep fucking up.” His eyes shot up in despair. “Mart, I can’t think about anything else but how much I want to die. Just stop existing. I’m dragging you down.”

“We drag ourselves down,” Martin retorted with a crooked smile. “You know, sometimes I wake up and think that I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You really should go easy on these pills.” Andy’s tone was rebuking but the sadness drifting in it stated simple concern for a friend. “And I think that you can’t keep avoiding him forever.”

Bubbles sizzled in his stomach and Martin broke into hollering laughter. He wanted to cry but he laughed and couldn’t stop. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes, he laughed and laughed, suffocating of the shortage of air and pain in his chest.

Andy peered at him with pity.

“Who avoids whom is the real question,” Martin said, finally calmed down. “All right, let’s go. But I’m not going to surrender only because he wants so. Will you back me up?”

Andy stood up, towering like a quite cracked but still a solid stone wall.

“Do I have a choice?”

 Alan didn’t even glance at the two lads entering the studio, but Flood joined his hands as if seeing a god descending from heavens. However, his biting _‘Look who’s crawling from under a rock’_ didn’t speak of any cheer.

Hearing what Аlаn had done to the track, Martin froze in front of the mic. Syrupy flute and polished samples sounded so tastelessly that he didn’t even know how to react and just stood there, dumbfounded. There wasn’t only a Cupid’s harp for а finishing touch. How could Аlаn have done _that_ to his moving and eerie demo? 

“Stop the recording,” Martin barked past the mic. Аlаn’s finger hit the button so hard it could snap the keyboard in half.

Martin tugged at his hair and, walking round the room, fished out a cigarette.

“How much more time our Maestro requires to get in the mood?” Аlаn rapped out in a corroded metal-like voice.  

Andy fidgeted on the leather couch.

“The track differs a lot from the demo,” he noted.

“Oh really?”

God bless Fletch's acuteness, thought Martin. Finishing a smoke, he pressed the stub into an ashtray with fair force. Alan was drilling him with a cold stare full of malice.

“The demo has a very different mood,” Andy continued with a little more confidence. “Martin’s Judas is sullen, morose, he–”

“That’s not him.”

Well, the enlightenment didn’t mean to last. His friend’s help appeared to be the exact good intentions that paved the known road.

Martin came close to the chair Alan was sitting on and peered at him with resolution of an executioner. Jesus, he looked terrible. A real zombie.

“Remake it, now. It sounds disgusting.”

Alan’s cheekbone quaked. He was sitting still, and then his hand leaped up in the air and sent the computer along with the dirty dishes flying from the desk. Martin didn’t move an inch, but Flood and Andy sprang up from their spots, shouting and rushing to pick up the stuff from the floor.

Alan stood up. Fire lashed in his eyes, the one animals have.

“All these years all I hear from you is criticism.” His nostrils flared but the voice was ice. “But instead of finally explaining what Your Highness wants, you keep fucking with my brain. Say, Gore, do you even know how to talk to people?” His voice betrayed him with a tremble, and he broke into shouting. “Can you show a little respect for my work once in a lifetime, just say it like a decent human being what I do wrong? I am a human, Martin, I’m not a machine, I don’t have a button you can press to give a command! Even more so I can’t get into your head and read what I have to do there! Do you hear me? You have to talk to me!"

With a shaking hand he raked back the hair that had fallen to his forehead. He looked lost, not knowing where to go and what to do; he stepped to and fro, aimlessly darting his eyes about the room.

Leaving the now unserviceable monitor how it was – it had a long crack in the middle – Andy grabbed him by a wrist. Alan stared at him, baffled, like the hand that seized him just pulled him out of his own thoughts.

“Alan, go away, please,” Andy said with no anger but rather disappointment. “I’m begging you, just get out of my sight, or I’ll kill you.”    

Surprisingly, Alan complied without confrontation and, as it turned out, drove to the town to get a new screen. They worked on _Judas_ till late at night, and it gained a far more fitting, deceitfully serene sound that was like calm before the storm. And the storm was _In Your Room_ , hopeless in its desperation.

Closer to the morning with Andy and Flood gone to their rooms, Martin and Alan wound up in the kitchen, with a bottle of vodka standing between them on the table, transparent like truth.

“I hate what we’ve become,” Alan said quietly, rubbing his eyelids.

“We didn’t have a choice.” Martin set an empty glass aside and stood up to leave. “God left us. Now we’re doomed to roam in the dark.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work has been finished in Russian and I'm excited to fully translate it to English, but the last two chapters are quite long so it'll take some time. Please, be patient and enjoy.


	6. But before you come to any conclusions, try walking in my shoes

Hаmburg was good for everyone. Here the months spent in Madrid seemed only а distant nightmare one could only laugh аt remembering. Definitely that period wаs а heаvy, tedious dream of а junkie that occasionally morphed into no less painful in its blurriness vigilance.

Now when they were far аwаy from the terror of the Spanish commune, Martin invited Dave for а cup of tea, pointing him to the opposite chаir with а serious fаce.

“You cаn creаte а rebellious imаge however you like, but, Dаve, imаge is fictionаl in its essence. Аnd you, you live your chаrаcter.”

Dаve wаs impаtiently scrаtching his brow аnd bouncing his foot under the tаble.

“You have to quit heroin if you wаnt to live аt leаst till thirty-three.”

That vаmpiric grin of his. But Martin didn’t see anything funny. He hаdn’t touched his teа, аnd now moved it to the side to leаn in to Dаve аnd stаred into his eyes, blаck аs dаrkness itself.

“In а mаnner of speаking, nobody needs you to kick off on tour.”

“Mаrt, whаt аre you–”

“Don’t interrupt me. It’s а serious mаtter. So serious thаt I'm offering you to sign а contrаct.”

“А contrаct, huh? Will we sign it with blood?”

“If needed, yes.”

Dаve’s giggling went on even though Mаrtin didn’t lift off his heаvy gаze from him. However, he wаs quick to quiet down when Mаrtin took out а piece of pаper, а pen аnd а rаzor from his bаg.

“Jesus fucking Christ, you’re а psycho.”

“We аll аre psychos.” Mаrtin nodded in agreement. “Here аre the terms: you tone down drug consumption аnd I drink less booze.”

“Аn unthinkаble sаrcifice.” Dаve resumed his buffoonery. Mаrtin grаbbed him by the wrist, hаrd.

“I’d rаther sаy precautions. You know, you’d better go on holidаy to rehаb when we’re done with the аlbum.”

And even though their makeshift ‘contract’ was solidified with the blood-stained fingerprints of their thumbs, Martin didn’t really believe that Dave would fulfill the provision, but he still made it his job to swap gin and bourbon for lager. Truth be told, there were few things he was sure about anymore.

The end of the recording in Germany was going far easier, but he couldn’t get rid of a feeling of inexplicable fluctuation. Could Judas really outmatch Jesus’ splendor?

Miller listened out his apprehensions with fair understanding.

“You know, taking into account the glorious sales of _Violator_ , even half as much success would be more than enough for _Songs of Faith and Devotion_.”       

Martin frowned. Of course, Miller was right, and sensibly he knew that. But his ambition wouldn’t let him be. The mere notion that the peak of his creativity had been already reached and from now on it could only go downwards was making him sick. How many artists had suffered this fate; sooner or later every successful band encountered this problem. But Martin felt it wasn’t the end, he hadn’t said everything he wanted and, even more so, could do it better. And that was what he hinted Alan at when they ended up at the same pub and pensively sat down shoulder to shoulder at the counter.

“I just don’t like the way _Judas_ is coming out. Hell, half of this damned album is a half-baked job. I wish we didn’t listen to Dave.”

Alan’s angular fingers tightened on his sweated glass.

“I want to try out one more thing with it,” he said after a pause, peering at the rows of bottles in the bar. “I mean with Judas.”

Martin ran his hand across his face. He was tired. It was unlikely that Alan really got that not his arrangements were the root of Martin’s concerns.

“All right, enough about work. You know, it’d be nice to go on holiday before the tour. Feels like this one is going to be especially exhausting.”

For the first time in a long while Alan broke into laughter. It wasn’t joyful, rather bitter in its agreement. But how much his face blossomed: the blue in his eyes deepened – maybe because of the neon lights in the bar – and the corners of his eyes rippled with that pleasant web of wrinkles. Martin couldn’t resist smiling back.

“Not a bad idea, yeah,” Alan said, tousling a coaster in his hand. “And your baby needs some fresh air. Imagine what she will look like if she spends her whole childhood in that rotting crypt.”

Perhaps moving house was only logical but Martin didn't want to rush into such things before a long tour. Although of course he’d thought of leaving England for good not once. It’d be good for Viva, and her well-being had become the only valid argument in any matter for him.

Remembering his daughter, Martin reached out to his wallet and handed a photo to Alan. He and Suzanne were holding Viva who was wearing a wonderful lilac dress. Martin was smiling from ear to ear and Viva’s mother had forgotten to put on her trademark red lipstick.

Alan carefully took the photograph and peered at it for a while. His lips slowly turned into a warm smile and when he looked up, handing the picture to the owner, his eyes shone with a genuinely friendly spark. And only in the depth of his gaze, somewhere in the faded hue of his irises, sat a fracture of sadness. Or maybe it was envy.

In London things got even better. Close to home all concerns and insecurities wore out, like the pain in an open wound fades away with a big dose of morphine.

One overcast morning Martin was awakened by a phone call and, glancing at the clock through the barely slit eyelids, he silently cursed the tosser who thought up to give him a call at 5 am.

“Mart? I got it!”

Wilder’s voice echoed in every nerve-ending with a rattling impulse, and for a moment Martin forgot he was about to throw a tantrum.

“Umm?”

“Bagpipe! Judas needs a bagpipe!”

As it appeared in the studio, he’d hired a Scottish bagpiper for the intro. And sure enough, such an unorthodox choice of an instrument made the track fresh and gave it a quality of a foggy dawn somewhere on the marshy south-west of England.

Martin couldn’t believe that they’d finished working on the album. Even on a Californian beach, running hand in hand with Viva who kept striving to dive into the water, he still couldn’t believe they’d done it. And although he tried not to think about the hovering jaws of the beast that before long would bare its fangs behind their backs, he already felt its malodorous breath. He knew that even naming the doom’s day show ‘Devotional’ wouldn’t save them from the monster and dodge the penance.     

They had to make the tour shows otherworldly. Dave, rarely getting in touch and behaving a little far from adequacy, once in a call with him assured that this one would be the tour of tours and even the hardcore rockers would be pissing themselves from how ‘buzz hype’ they were. Andy arranged to hire backing vocalists; Alan suggested performing the same way they did the recording sessions – with live instruments.

“We have to create a unique atmosphere,” Martin spoke on a meeting. “You know, when you enter a chapel the air there is different, and when you breathe it you feel like a part of something bigger.”

Miller nodded in agreement. Dave, who was sitting with his legs up on the desk in lacquered crocodile-skin shoes, hollered with zest.

“Man, that’s fucking dope!” He gave thumbs up. “Are we gonna burn candles? Bring some crosses?”

“For God’s sake, not this blasphemy,” Andy grunted out of habit.

“Oh, chill out dawg, we won’t crucify anyone. Okay, how bout some candle imagery then?”

Alan snapped his fingers. His left eyebrow made a sly wiggle.

“Not just imagery, we should decorate the stage accordingly, you know, with screen projections and requisites. The stage itself should look like an altar. All that, it has to be cinematographic and theatrical at once.”

“Kinda like _Jesus Christ Superstar_ ,” Dave nodded with enthusiasm.

“Oh, come on.” Andy frowned. “And who’s going to do all this?”

They knew who. An hour later Dave tearfully begged Anton to work on their stage decorations.

“I haven’t done anything like this before.” Corbijn sighed after a long pause. “But you’re a special case. I think I could try.”

What his tries became after a couple weeks surprised everyone, including Anton himself. Long flowing curtains were to cloak the sacrament of the opening act from the spectators, further on opening up and letting them witness a two-tiered stage and giant screens with obscure neo-gothic visuals, dramatically changing to the mood of every song. The scale of these adornments promised to look grandiose and at the same time intimate in combination with the dimness of the lights, like in a confessional.

And Anton didn’t seem to want to stop there.

“I want to film you,” he said during a smoke break at the rehearsal. Dave’s eyes sparkled with playful fire.

“Like _101_ but with more panache? Cause we’re rock stars now, you know.”

Anton chuckled, but his smile was somehow sad. With peculiar tenderness he rested his hand on Dave’s shoulder, and Martin noticed that his gaze was a gaze of a doctor looking at a terminally ill patient.

“I don’t think we need any plot line here. Just a concert film. But that will be more than enough.”

Sustaining a pause, he glanced over the four and quietly said:

“I want to imprint you into eternity. Because I feel that _Devotional_ will be something out of this world.”

Surprisingly, Miller wasn't very fond of the idea. Although the album sold well – oh, excellently, even though it didn’t outplay Violator – but the expenses on the stage decorations and, God forbid, now a concert film, put him into a grim state of mind. Andy tried to reason that everything would pay off just fine because, thanks to the spontaneous decision to go rock, the horde of their fans expended with new following.

In a rarely warm for Hertfordshire evening on the 16th of May, Suzanne approached the couch Martin was sitting on from behind and winded her arms around his neck. A wave of her silky hair obstructed the view of a book he was reading, making him fidget.

“What are you reading?” she asked and glanced at the lines Martin had highlighted: _‘Grenouille knew for certain that unless he possessed this scent, his life would have no meaning. He had to understand its smallest detail, to follow it to its last delicate tendril; the mere memory, however complex, was not enough’_. Suzanne slowly backed off.

They had dinner in silence. Martin went upstairs to pack the remains of his large wardrobe. Seven suitcases weren’t quite enough to fit in all his stage outfits and everyday wear, and Suzanne, with a teapot on a tray in her hands, walked into him sitting on top of one of the swelling cases and vainly trying to zip it up. Putting the tray down, she stepped to Martin, barefoot as she was, sat next to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. On Pavlovian reflex, Martin hugged her by the shoulders, staring at the wall with blank eyes, as if in reality he was looking inside his own head.

“When will you be back?”

“There’s a break at the end of July.”

Suzanne smoothed the curls out from his forehead. Martin stood up to close yet another suitcase.        

“I will miss you,” she said quietly.

 

*******

 

Icy water that looked blue prickled his face, burning his wide open eyes. His hair flowed beneath its surface in liquid strands as he was slowly counting the seconds. His throat cramped of suppressed air inside it. 

The fourth minute spurned and his lungs quivered in alerting convulsions. Martin clawed the slippery porcelain, desperately trying not to let the instincts overpower his will.

But they won. With a low groan he yanked his head off the sink, catching the air with wide open mouth and flaring nostrils. The air had a salty taste but it wasn’t the salt of an ocean breeze. It was a tart tinge of blood.

He threw up in that same sink and the relief from the finished toxic vertigo made him lean to the moist tiled wall and slide down. Martin breathed deeply for a few minutes and, with the familiar throb of a craving in his bloodstream, felt his pockets for cigarettes. He chuckled, thinking that just moments ago his entire being was aimed at getting just one gulp of air, and now again it wanted to trade it for tobacco smoke.

“Mr. Gore? Everyone’s waiting for you!”

One of the stage workers plunked his head in the doorframe and instantly was gone  – Martin didn’t bother to look closer who it was. But the one who came in after attracted his attention.

Damp with sweat from head to toe – drops were sliding down his hair – Dave squatted next to him and pulled something out of his pocket.

“Not bad, huh?”

His barking laugher at once returned Martin to the world that Dave always carried along with him: the world of shadows and dreams, smelling of alcohol, medicine and death. Dave’s arm wrapped around his shoulders; Martin tried not to look at what he was holding in his hand.

“You were good.”

Martin’s voice was weak, and so were these words. Dave wasn’t just good – he was majestic. Neither alcoholic nor drug intoxication affected his performance; he kept the crowd hooked like never before and the spectators followed every of his deeply erotic motions, losing their minds over his velvet, intimate voice – now whispering, then breaking into a scream.

Having taken his dose, Dave leaned his head to Martin’s collar. Both were shaking, even though for different reasons, but Martin was sure that neither has been this excited ever before.

“Oh, why are you wet?” Dave noticed, raising his head and peering at somewhere around Martin’s eyes with a wolfish grin.

“You know, I’ve actually violated our contract.” Martin pulled a crooked smile and Dave laughed in response with that coughing laughter of his.

“Oh, shit, man, me too… but does it matter now?”

It was actually in his interests. Of course Martin wasn’t going to tell Dave how he just tried to drown himself in a sink. Of course he didn’t fail to notice how reverently the crowd reacted to that sensual in his vulnerability new Dave, and how Dave gave himself away to the last drop of his soul. If he still had one.

Like a sullen guard, Andy stepped through the door. He silently looked at them with an empty unblinking gaze and Martin started to think that maybe he didn’t mean to walk in there.

“We're all waiting just for you,” he said briefly and stormed off. His hands were balled into firm fists.

Everyone had attended the party in honor of the first gig: Miller came, Daryl popped champagne, Flood and Kessler were there, and the backing vocalists, and the girls from the support act, and the sound engineers, and the light workers, hell, even the cleaner got a shot. VIP fan girls surrounded Dave with shrieks as soon as he and Martin entered the room. Martin skillfully dodged them, promising to sign their tits later, because now he desperately needed a drink.

Squeezing in between Andy, who had a gaudy lady sitting in his concrete lap, and Alan, who was decorated with girls like a Christmas tree, Martin picked up a random bottle. Tequila, how lucky.

God knew how much alcohol was shed. The dawn had broken when the crowed started to thin out. Dave had left a couple hours ago with two fans supporting his walk. Andy had fallen asleep in the same stone sculpture position he’d been quietly sitting in the whole night. Alan was smoking pensively; his eyelids got swollen and dark bags formed below his eyes.

“So the bagpipe worked out just right,” he said in a hoarse voice. Martin peered at him at a loss but instantly broke into a coy smile.

“Yes. I even felt how, how do I put this… how down there they all want me.”

A quirk of the left eyebrow. An acid grin. There he was, the usual Wilder.

How amazing he was on drums. From the corner of his eye Martin had kept glancing to his side, at his damp short hair, at his scrupulously bitten lip.

“A really great gig.” Martin smiled. Alan returned him a tired smile. And then Martin’s chest sank with such a profound ache, such an immense desire, that at once he was glad his body had betrayed him earlier and got out of the water coffin.

Martin put the bottle aside and shifted closer. Alan’s painfully familiar scent – some hair gel, some sweat, cigarettes, fresh smell of his skin and leather – made his heart shrink and skip a beat. God, how much Martin wanted to kiss him now.

Alan turned away, fidgeted and locked his hands together.

“I don’t know if we can keep it up, though. Playing several instruments in one gig is pretty exhausting. And Dave…”

He got quiet and pointedly shook his head. Martin involuntarily propped a faint fist to his chest. By his side, Andy started coughing and woke up.     

At about six in the morning, on their way to the hotel in an armored car, Martin dozed off. Again he was running away from the haunting shadow, again tried to open the giant oak door, but this time it was successful. The walls inside were edgeless; a winding staircase led up. Each footstep echoed and raised the dust from the stone steps. He walked up, feeling with his back that the shadow-stalker was following the ghosts of his footsteps. Ceasing to look up – impenetrable darkness looked back at him from above – Martin felt a cold hand softly lying onto his shoulder.

 _“Walk on barefoot for me on this narrowest path,”_ the shadow ordered. Without arguing, Martin stooped to take off his shoes, and when he raised his head a bleak light hit his eyes through the tinted car window.

“We’re here,” the driver said drowsily. Martin felt movement next to his shoulder and his insides flipped in his stomach. Alan, shaking his disheveled head, straightened and reached to the door. He’d been sleeping on Martin’s shoulder.

 

*******

 

During the World Violation Tour they had to hide, and that secrecy had its own exciting temptation. Stolen kisses in a dressing room with a door ajar, quick hand squeezes in hotel halls. Sometimes they exchanged notes that didn’t have anything but numbers written on them. A funny and bitter thing that, once losing something, people start missing even such small trivial details. And Martin’s heart would go miserably cold every time Alan passed him by in an empty hall and didn’t try to press him to the wall and lean in to kiss his neck for that sweet second they had before an encounter with the owner of footsteps approaching around the corner.  

As if Alan didn’t care anymore. And if Martin didn’t know him better he’d accept that fact with all humility and learned to live with it. But instead, he had to learn to live with the idea that Alan didn’t show his interest in him on purpose. Because unlike their sly owner, his eyes that burst with sparkles every time Martin entered a venue for a soundcheck spoke for themselves.

Martin liked to play, but only by his own rules. Alan’s rules exploited him and piled up a thick layer of ulterior aggression. Alan didn’t attend parties, excusing himself with his weakened health, not to mention more often than not they lived on different floors in hotels. But on stage – on stage everything was different.

With his back, Martin felt that burning gaze of the eyes that he knew were shining with the blueness of the pure April sky.

 

_I want you now_

_Tomorrow won't do_

_There's a yearning inside_

_And it's showing through_

_Reach out your hands_

_And accept my love_

_We've waited for too long_

_Enough is enough_

_I want you now_

 

The drums, the keyboards, the piano – every instrument Alan was at sounded with desperate poignancy and a soulful strain. And he was the one who’d said it wasn’t the instruments that had soul but the person playing them. No, he did care. No, he hadn’t forgotten their heated nights, their vows, the madness of kindled bodies. That couldn’t be.

They wouldn’t speak for days, but one headlong glance cast on stage told everything. And Martin knew that Alan adored him as much as before, and wanted him as much as before, if not more than that. Even more than that treacherous night in Madrid.

Alan’s defeat in this unequal battle was a question of time, so Martin kept on a mystic smile, shining bright on stage from head to toe, swaying his hips and bringing his feet together in that way he knew was utterly touching. He raised his arms higher so his armpits and a sharp bicep lines would be visible from that far corner of the stage where a drum kit was positioned. So the pictures with another background – the background of white sheets – would emerge in the memory of the frenziedly playing drummer.

It was so easy to play this game blindfold. Martin wasn’t very much concerned about Alan’s moves and entertained himself by getting pissed drunk in nightclubs with astounding amount of people, and all those people loved him. Every night he’d return to his hotel room with various numbers of girls, and each of them worshipped him and was ready to die for just one touch from him. He didn’t remember their names or faces; their words of love bored him to death. Pure sex, not burdened by feelings, had a far more healing effect, so not before long he switched to prostitutes. But no matter how sweet was the act of purchased love, their lack of engagement and complete obedience didn’t bring any delight to him but mere mechanical arousal.

Dave didn’t seem to share his blues.

“Fuck me, even _Violator_ didn't bring us so many chicks,” he whistled coming about another meeting with VIP fans.

“I hope that at least half of them listened ‘Songs of Faith’ to the end.” Alan sarcastically eyed the crowd.

And that also bothered Martin. Everyone loved Dave, everyone loved him, but was the album really that good? Coming out to the dark altar of the stage under the sheer drapes and hearing the roar of the beast ready to break loose, he didn’t doubt that. Coming down to a solo he experienced pure ecstasy from the black love of that monster, the love that was directed at him to the last particle.

But at nights, back from a bar or a club, alone, he didn’t sleep a wink, sorry that he didn’t take more time on this or that song. Because every single one of them could have been done better, but he hadn’t done anything, afraid to make them worse. Afraid of critique, of Wilder who’d want to change bloody everything thus producing yet another hit which Martin wouldn’t have been able to embrace as his own creation. And with those thoughts, he would keep sitting on the floor in front of a mini-bar, and only be out cold at the red glow of dawn for a few restless hours that he spent climbing up the darkness of the tower, barefoot, and wake up as tired as if he’d really walked on those steep stairs instead of sleep.  

The roar of the crowd thickened with every other gig, growing in proportion to the amount of alcohol at the afterparties. They’d even bring something to drink on stage, and now, after another performance of the soul-crashing _One Caress_ , Dave rushed on him with a bottle in his hand like a dive plane.

“You’re fucking brilliant, darling! This is the shit!” Dave yelled into his ear, firmly holding him up to his sweat-sodden body in front of a thousands people crowd that reacted with approving squeals. Right from his hands, Dave tipped the bottle to Martin’s mouth, and he wrapped an arm around his waist, slippery like a snake, trying not to choke on gin.

It amused him that people liked what they saw; perhaps it would start some speculations about his relationship with Dave in the press, and he could already imagine rhetorical exclamations of tireless journalists and thousand-word articles about their ambiguous sexuality.

But Dave didn’t seem to care, or he deliberately tried to stir the pot, placing a wet kiss on Martin’s forehead before going off and running to the upper platform of the stage, where he whirled like a furious vortex, and slapped Andy, who didn’t bat an eyelid, and Alan, who raised a brow. For a moment it seemed to Martin that Alan cast a questioning look down, at him, and shook his head. But a light head buzz and the blinding blue light didn’t let him distinguish Alan’s expression from that distance.

There was something ominous in how far away they were placed from each other, getting closer only during the older songs, where Martin had to play the synthesizer. When he picked up the guitar, the world narrowed to his fingers trembling on the strings; he could hardly stay upright, he staggered of nauseous feeling, but the moment he heard the thunder of drums from the other side, his feet would instinctively drag him there, closer to Alan. He’d stay the closest he could to the drum kit, just to feel that there was something holding him on earth and not letting him crash down to the black abyss spread before them.

And for Dave there wasn’t anything to hold him.

“Why did you jump there?” Alan yelled, punching the wall a few centimeters away from Dave’s head; that wanker was baring his teeth in the Cheshire’s Cat grin. He was high and of course didn’t feel any pain, but Martin’s gut shrank as he recalled the view of the beast ravishing and lacerating Dave’s body with its claws and fangs. How Dave managed to survive remained a mystery: the security scratched him out from the monstrous jaws topless and his torso was strewn with nail marks all over.     

“I just wanted to become one with them,” Dave said wistfully. Alan gnawed his lip, drilling him with spiteful eyes. Daryl, who must’ve still remembered how a few years ago Alan threw his fists at Andy, softly tugged him by the elbow and led away.

“You just can’t draw the line,” Alan hissed before he was served with a cigarette and a glass of tequila. “Want to become one with them – then just continue fucking fan girls, why risking your health?”

Anton was standing behind them and smoking in silence. Everyone knew he filmed that crazy dive.

“Can I photograph you?” He approached Dave, hugging him by the shoulders.

“Sure, Cap!”   

He took a relaxed, slutty posture, but Anton shook his head.

“No, lie down. Your face is so spiritual now, and all these scratches give you an aura of a martyr.”

Alan grimaced and turned away. Martin sat down next to him on the couch while Anton was dancing around Dave with his camera.

“Martyr my arse,” Alan grumbled, pouring tequila into the glass Martin handed to him. “It’s us who are suffering here, that one is just going nuts.”

It seemed that Daryl loved the metaphor so much he started to address the group as ‘my martyrs’, which never failed to make Alan growl and Dave cackle. Fletch only crossly peered in front of himself and frowned.

More and more often the girls from _Miranda Sex Garden_ partied with them after the gigs: they were Depeche support act and played a sulky mix of gothic rock and industrial. They were quite a ride, too, especially Katharine and Hepzibah who never missed a chance to strip down at least to their bras and dance on top of tables. Martin was more than fine with such company, so was Dave when he didn’t run away with some shady crews after the gigs.

“Al, is _Two Minute Warning_ about sex at a cemetery?” Donna playfully nudged Alan to the ribs. He looked bewildered for a second but at once recovered and leaned closer to her.

“Why, wanna try it out?”

The rest of the girls and Dave whistled. Donna seemed to be lost and cast her eyes.

“It’s not worth it, Don.” Suddenly Sessa interfered and tugged her friend by the arm, making her switch couches. “He did warn he can only last two minutes.”

Martin laughed and drank with them, danced with Katharine wearing only his underwear, and then he noticed that Andy had vanished. Even given that his consciousness was far from clear, he couldn’t remember for the life of him that his friend had said goodbye.

“Where’s Andy?” He turned to Dave who was making out with Donna. He didn’t hear the question over the loud music and grabbed Martin into one armful with the girl so Martin’s chin pressed to Donna’s warm breasts.

And he forgot what was bothering him so much, and took turns dancing with all the girls till dawn, even though more and more often he ended up in the arms of the barely conscious Dave. He mumbled something and slobbered Martin’s neck, shaking, then harshly breaking off and dashing around the room, collecting the remaining drinks as if trying to recharge the wasted energy.

In the morning, after Dave had thrown up on the pillow and was out with face down in that same pillow snoozing on the couch, Martin looked around the room and realized that everyone save for a couple of sleeping girls that he didn’t even know had been gone. And then he remembered.

He crept to the door of Andy’s hotel room and had to sit up to knock – he felt like a flesh windmill. Withered sun bathed the hall in bleak hospital light that was making him sick. Knocking once more and not getting a response, Martin decided not to fight destiny and emptied his stomach into the nearest flowerpot.

He came round of a harsh push to his shoulder and flinched; pain pierced every cell of his body and his focus was so blurry that he didn’t instantly recognize the red head familiar from his childhood that hovered over him. Martin jolted in fright and sat up, for which his splitting head wasn’t very grateful, and stared at Fletcher who had a particularly judging look about him.

“Don’t tell me you couldn’t walk five metres to your room and decided to fall asleep in the hall.”

“I couldn’t walk five metres to my room and decided to fall asleep in the hall.”   

Andy sighed heavily and without further reprimands offered him a hand. Once in the room, Martin rushed to the water carafe and only after drying it down started to notice that something was wrong.

Hospital light had appeared to him for a reason. Andy’s room reeked of medicine. It was awfully unkempt; stuff was thrown on the bed, chairs, table, all over the floor, as if the resident was maniacally looking for something. With viscid freeze in his gut, Martin picked up an empty painkiller jar from the floor.

“Andy, is everything all right?”

Andy was smoking, leaned up against the doorframe, one arm hugging the other. His head was tilted to the side; he peered to his feet with unblinking eyes, and Martin had only just noticed that his lips looked blue-ish on his ghastly pale face. The face that now bore more wrinkles that he’d got in the past five years.

He made one determined step to his friend, clenching the jar in his fist.

“I noticed that you left early. Did something happen?”

Silence was the response. Andy’s cigarette had smoldered to the filter and had to be burning his fingers now, but he stood at his spot, still like a statue.

“Andy, I can see there’s something wrong with you. Is something bothering you? Is it about Grainne? You can tell me, I–”

And then his face distorted in such a morbid and hateful grimace that Martin backed off in fear. He imagined that Andy was about to shout or hit him, but instead he dropped to the floor and, bending his arms, hid his face and burst into ugly sobbing.

Martin stood, dumbstruck, not knowing what to say or do. Andy’s shoulders shook, he cried so disconsolately that it seemed that even the walls started to echo him with mournful howling. And Martin just stood there, stood and stared, kneading the empty jar in his fingers. A jar of strong painkillers. Blue lips. Pale face.

Sometimes body works faster than brain, driven by instinct, and sometimes intuition works even faster than both. Martin blocked out the rushing stream of thoughts and grabbed Andy by the scruff of his neck with all his strength, dragged him into the bathroom and shoved two fingers into his throat with methodical precision. That precision was a bit disrupted by the fact that Andy hadn’t ceased weeping and now was trying to fight back to break free from the iron hold of Martin who’d bent him over the toilet. When nothing came out of this, he sunk his teeth into Martin's fingers like a wild animal, so Martin had to weigh upon him harder, and, for what he felt especially ashamed and disappointed in himself, kick Andy to the balls. That hit was betrayal, and Andy’s agonized scream hurt him way more than the bite. But it did work.

In attempt to make up for it and ease his friend’s suffering, Martin wiped Andy’s face with a wet towel while he was absent-mindedly sitting on the floor, his legs unwillingly stretched apart.

“This is not a way out,” Martin said quietly, sitting beside and hugging his own knees.

Andy maintained stubborn silence, sniffing from time to time.

“I understand that things are hard for you. They’re hard for all of us, it’s–”

“You don’t understand shit.”

His metallic voice sounded from another world, building a harsh echo from the tiled walls. Martin slowly turned his head and looked into Fletcher’s red eyes. He looked back, direct and merciless.

“’Hard for all of us’, Mart, you’re an alcoholic. And your bosom buddy Dave is a junkie. You’re fucking crazy and will soon kick the bucket if you carry on. And I know you will.”

“Andy–”

“Don’t ‘Andy’ me. I’m sorry but the time when I was ‘Andy’ for you had passed long ago. I’ve always tried to support you but I can’t do this anymore. I can’t support anyone anymore, I’m a useless whimp and all I want is this bloody band to disappear into the earth, along with you, and with me. I hate this life, I don’t even need all this anymore, I just want to die in peace.”

His words were sharp razors cutting Martin’s heart, but he swallowed down the pain and pride and held Andy by the shoulders, peering into his eyes.

“Tell me what’s wrong with you.”

Andy cringed away from his unsteady hold and spat to the side.

“Fuck off.”

And Martin fucked off, thinking on his way that Andy’s shaver was electric, and there weren’t any knives in his room, or at least Martin didn’t notice any. But the ceiling lamp looked sturdy enough to sustain his weight.

Entering his room, Martin didn’t even undress before dialing Grainne.       

Now their wives and girlfriends followed them on tour, but their presence didn’t really smooth out the rough ice between the band members. For some reason, though, Jeri didn’t come with them. And Teresa wasn’t helping Dave much, even more so she pandered his hideous habits. For her it all must’ve been an amusing joke.

One night after a gig Martin glimpsed Alan talking to her in the hall. He didn’t hear what they were saying but judging by Alan’s crossed arms and furrowed eyebrows, and Teresa’s annoyed eyes rolling up, he figured that they didn’t find common ground.    

Martin would sober up a bit around his family, but every night after reading Viva a fairy-tale he’d head to a club to restore the balance of alcohol in his blood. There wasn’t any revolt from Suzanne – she didn’t say anything, and when Martin would invite her to bed with a short nod of his spinning head, she agreed in a heartbeat. So Martin was a little bewildered when two weeks later they packed their stuff: with an absent smile, Suzanne briefly explained that she had to work on a new catalogue. Viva hang onto his legs, asking when daddy would come home. Perhaps Suzanne didn’t like that Martin started to take their daughter on stage where she’d seat on a piano and clapped in delight while her dad, barely standing upright, sang for yet another crowded stadium.

Shortly after, Grainne left them too, but it was clear that she didn’t want to leave Andy alone.

“I got no right to ask,” she told Martin, thin-lipped, “but, please, keep an eye on him.”

“I don’t really think he wants my company.”

Grainne gazed at Martin with big sad eyes.

“I know. But I’m afraid for him.”

Two weeks remained till the break. Everyone’s was worn out, Dave was terribly irritable and his antics started to annoy even the stage personnel – no wonder, he ordered to put a coffin in his dressing room to lie in before and after the gigs. Andy didn’t talk to Martin; in fact they saw each other only at soundchecks and on stage.

Once again they ended up in the heat of Madrid when it became crystal clear to all that they wouldn’t survive this tour. 

Usually Martin arrived at soundchecks an hour and a half before a gig. And today he, routinely shitfaced, was standing on the spotlight in the corner, playing the riff of _I Feel You_ without paying attention. Andy was towering upon him miles away at his synthesizer, pressing a couple occasional keys.

Half an hour was left before the act when Dave arrived. He was pissed off that the wine he was offered was semi-sweet and not the dry one. Martin stopped playing, watching his ugly wrangling with the water boy, when Daryl ran onto the stage. He was sweating bullets.

“Guys, Wilder is in hospital. We have to find a replacer on drums, quick,” he jabbered, running from Dave to Martin as if trying to lead them in a common spot. “I can replace him on the keys, but the fucking drums! Can anybody play drums?”

At last Dave walked up closer, scratching his head with blind fog in his eyes.

“Well, fuck. Nobody.”

“Oh, this bloody tour be damned! The crowd is entering in twenty two minutes, and we haven’t done shit! We can’t cancel just because we don’t have a drummer!”

Martin, suddenly seeing in eerie focus every wrinkle on his silver boots, every scratch, every hair on his legs, as if he was looking in a magnifying glass, backed off and sat down. Inside him was spreading rippled, poisonous coldness, and a realization started to vibrate in his mind.

“Daryl… what’s wrong with Alan?”

“He won’t come! Motherfucker is off the show!” Daryl shouted, raking his hair back from his face. He was about to run off the stage but Martin, fighting with panicked trembling in every muscle, sprang to his feet and clutched his shoulder.

“You said Alan was in hospital – what happened?”

Panting, Martin felt many eyes on himself. Dave, Andy, all the sound and light engineers present on stage – everyone stared at him in shock. He’d just yelled at Daryl.

Daryl’s features softened and he carefully reached out his hand to move away from Martin.     

“I don’t know the details, the hospital called and said that Alan Charles Wilder was admitted a couple hours ago and… well… underwent surgery.”

Martin’s ears flooded with deaf watery noise. His vision narrowed to the exit from the stage; he grabbed his jacket and started off running to the door.  

“Where are you going!” Now Daryl caught him by an elbow and pulled him away. Dave slowly approached him from the front, blocking out his way.

“To the hospital.”

“Mart, calm down,” Dave said in a steady voice. “We have to perform. If me and Fletch come out alone we’ll be booed.”

“I don’t give a fuck about this damned show,” Martin hissed, jolting forward. Daryl held him from behind, some more hands lay on his shoulders. Dave propped his palms to Martin’s chest and leaned in to him.

“You can’t do anything for him right now,” he whispered, and those words burned Martin’s heart like scorching rods. He wanted to cry; he lost his strength and, feeling a lump swelling in his throat and obstructing his breath, dropped his head to Dave’s shoulder, just so nobody could see tears flowing down his cheeks in uncontained streams.

Ignorance was scary, but even scarier was the thought that he might not see Alan ever again. Never tell him what he had meant to say long ago, but couldn’t find the words. All this time he’d been screwing around, wasting his time, and now the comprehension that the chance could've been lost forever enchained him with disastrous horror.

“I don’t care about your rules,” Martin stated dryly. The doctor lifted up the receiver, barking something to the receptionist in Spanish, but Martin interrupted him by throwing a thick pack of cash to his desk. Looking between Martin and the money, the doctor slowly hung up.

He didn’t turn on the light. Alan looked pale like a corpse in the silvery haze of the moon, and white sheets and walls only emphasized his fragility. He’d been laid into bed like a goner too – with his hands on his chest. Martin placed a bouquet of lavender he’d bought from an old lady outside to the vase on the nightstand.

According to the doc, Alan’s kidney problem had reached its limit. A strange thing, Martin now remembered one time from the old 1982 when they first came to a café together on a lunch break. Alan had ordered a vegetable salad and fish-and-chips, asking to leave the fish out.

“Don’t you eat meat and fish?” Martin asked, munching his bacon sandwich and drinking Ceylon tea.

“Nah. You know, there’s so much edible stuff on Earth, and yet we somehow always strive to kill something to restore our energy. Isn’t it ironic?”

Back then, Martin stared into his mouth in awe: Alan seemed so conscientious and mature to him, such virtuous thoughts he had. It inspired Martin to quit meat himself. And only years later he learned that Alan preferred vegetables for a far more trivial reason.

The whole night he wouldn’t let go of Alan’s cold hand, thinking, thinking, thinking. Words had never come easy for him, and expressing something he didn’t really understand with words was quite a challenge. One thing he knew for sure – losing Alan was out of question. He had to have made it clear long ago; mustn't have let that invisible wall rise between them over again.    

A suppressed groan and a slow movement awakened Martin – he didn’t notice when he fell asleep on the chair, his head resting on Alan’s chest. His eyes were fogged but it didn’t slip his attention how in the sunlight Alan’s pointy features quivered in surprise.

“What are you doing here?” he said in a weak voice, and the note of that intimate huskiness crashed Martin’s chest, knocking the air out of his lungs and making his blood pulse in a frantic rhythm. Such tenderness arose in him; the urge to squeeze Alan in his arms and hold him up to his heart was immense. But one thing was thinking over a speech and building up the courage, and trying to do and say it all under his steadfast, waiting gaze that instantly incinerated Martin’s resolve was entirely something else.  

He fidgeted on the chair, trying to look at least at Alan’s hands if not eyes.

“Al, I’m an idiot.”

The pause lasted so long that Martin had the time to count all the flowers in the bouquet and curse the very idea to come here.

“Of course you’re an idiot,” finally sighed Alan. “Who in their right mind sleeps on a chair in a hospital ward after a gig, huh, Gore?”

Shooting his eyes up to Alan, whose face now regained its color even though he still looked worn, Martin saw that dear, slightly mocking grin that so often annoyed him and that he loved so much. Smiling back, Martin gingerly drew forward.

He hesitated, laying a hand to Alan’s shoulder and squeezing his knuckles with the other one. Alan opened his mouth, but quickly swapped abashment to a sneer.

“You know, my stitches are going to open.”

He was discharged a couple hours later, and even though the doctor highly recommended to rest in bed, Barcelona was waiting for them. Alan performed stoically the next day; however it was noticeable how cautious he was. But the gig was great, and Anton, who had previously planned the filming to go in Madrid, gave them an idea to celebrate Wilder’s return to duty.

The party was louder and more crowded than any of the previous ones. Martin quickly lost count to drinks he’d had. Alan was drinking mineral water – for now alcohol was prohibited for him. Andy didn’t come, to no surprise, but at least there were Dave and Teresa, so together they all performed covers of 70s rock ballads on a shining white piano.

On the edge of dawn Martin felt something pulsing in his head, and the stuffed with people room floated in his eyes. His body became heavy, and suddenly he didn’t understand what people around him were saying, their undistinguishable words sounded from far away. He had to lie down on a couch, and when he woke up the room was nearly empty. The dull pain wouldn’t recede, so he opened a bottle of cold beer for breakfast to ease the hangover.

But, as it later appeared in Cologne, his state had nothing to do with hangovers. The night after the gig Martin invited a big crowd of practical strangers to his hotel room. For the past few days the lightest drink he’d had was beer. Having danced with some models he realized that the heaviness in his body and the pulsing in his brain were back, but now there also were tiny galaxies swarming in his eyes that he saw in the place of girls’ faces. Somebody approached him and put a hand on his shoulder – he didn’t understand who it was, and the words of the person were just jibberish.

That was all he remembered. When he came to his senses he was on the floor, surrounded by strangers in white coats. Opening his mouth, he attempted to ask them what happened, but all he produced was unintelligible gurgling. The people in coats exchanged worried glances.

After he was forcefully sobered up he started to more or less comprehend what was going on. Now he was in bed; somebody had been kind enough to change him into a fresh T-shirt and sweatpants. An IV stand had been placed next to the bed. His vision was still slightly rippling.

Feeling warmth on his shoulder, Martin turned to the side and for a moment it seemed like a long-forgotten dream from his childhood.

“Andy…”

Fletcher was looking at him with a stern wrinkle between his eyebrows. His hands were locked around his knee. Martin tried to sit up, but a doctor patted his stomach.

“Don’t get up. You’d better not move at all until the morning.”

After that the doctor wrote an awfully long prescription, explaining that Martin had had a hypertonic crisis, and in all appearances it wasn’t the first one. There was an issue with his hospitalization.    

“Mr. Miller said it is not possible right now,” the doctor said with empty reproach. “But I really wouldn’t advise you to postpone treatment longer.”

He gave a monotonous speech about troubles with vessels and how serious the consequences could be, concluding that Martin could end up with a brain hemorrhage if he wouldn’t do something about it.  

“It’s quite dangerous at your age, Mr. Gore. So first things first, you have to exclude alcohol from your diet. And, ahem… other… stuff.”

Martin listened to him, understanding about one third of his words. Or, rather, he could distinguish the words now, but they didn’t really make much sense.

When the doctor left, having instructed Andy to remove the IV from Martin’s arm in half an hour and under no circumstances allow him to get up, Martin turned his head and asked:

“Seriously? I can’t drink?”

For a minute Fletcher just stared at the wall. A vein was pulsing in his temple, his jaw muscles clenched nervously. About to reach to a glass of water on the nightstand, Martin felt an iron grip on his wrist.

“Mart, stop. I’m begging you, stop before it’s too late.”

Andy’s eyes that usually were kind and bright now had leaded, seething like volcanic pipe storm in them. A strand of hair fell to his forehead, and its fluttering made Martin notice how hard he was shaking.      

A week later Martin was admitted to a hospital. Consuming flavorless mash and loitering in the sterile halls between apathetic patients, Martin had to deal with unbearable, viscid spider web of boredom 24/7.

Boredom had always been his nemesis. He despised it and couldn’t stand dreary hours of inertness since he was a child, and that was one of the reasons why he started to kill time with writing poetry during useless classes. Working in a bank was even worse, and he hated it with every fibre of his being: office cubicles stuffed with average people, a bunch of senseless figures, sickening blather about a new kitchen set at the water fountain – all that was slowly driving him mad. His organism rejected work of this kind – it wasn’t work, it was an appearance of non-existent activity, a mere excuse to pay salaries to thousands of typical families so they could pay off their mortgages and second-hand Ford Capris on credit.

So now, alone with his own head for a whole month, Martin felt to the point of dull pain in the back of his skull how life was withering inside him.

Suzanne would drop by sometimes, but she never brought Viva. With every other visit Martin would talk less, answering her obligatory questions about his health with a short nod.

He’d twist a pen in his fingers for hours, hypnotizing a pristine piece of paper. The IV dripped awfully slowly. The sky behind the window was grey, drizzling rain wouldn’t stop knocking against stained glass.  

He was ready to trade this imprisonment for anything. For the Madridian commune, for bathroom conversations with Dave while he was shooting up a dose. For hours of Andy’s miserable speeches, who, by the way, didn’t visit him once. Well, he had full rights not to.

And no matter how painful, ugly and shameful it was to admit – for Alan. His sick mind would keep showing him shadows of the caresses on his stomach and fluttering lips on his skin, words whispered like a prayer, again and again, over and over again. 

It wasn’t just about sex. It wasn’t simple attraction to somebody he used to admire. Martin was tired to lie to himself that what he felt for Alan was something fleeting, shallow and meaningless. And he kept going back to the words Alan said one Milanese night again and again.

Shadows of the swaying trees outside spattered white walls that looked blue in the dark. The radio was playing quietly. Alan was lying on his side, his arm tucked under his head. His eyes were directed at Martin, but through him, inside him. His long eyelashes fluttered scarcely, lips quivered, fingers drew circles in his hair scattered on the pillow. Morrissey’s cry was flowing from the speakers:

 

_Last night I dreamt_

_That somebody loved me_

_No hope, no harm_

_Just another false alarm_

_Last night I felt_

_Real arms around me_

_No hope, no harm_

_Just another false alarm_

_So, tell me how long_

_Before the last one?_

_And tell me how long_

_Before the right one?_

 

Martin laid his hand on Alan’s prominent cheekbone. How beautiful he was at that moment. His eyes, silver, effusing something that he was so afraid to call love, slid up to Martin. They gazed at each other and Martin felt that every organ in his chest was being torn apart, thrown in a meat grinder and burst into shreds that flied off beyond his very being. He cuddled Alan in his arms, and in response he sunk his fingers in Martin’s back, emitting a heavy sigh.

“You know, Mart,” Alan whispered into his collarbone, “I’ve thought so much about the meaning of life, of a human’s mission – no, not of humanity but of an individual. We make music. Perhaps our music helps someone. But…”

He faltered and threw back his head. His brows were twisted in that killing, sad arch.

“I don’t know why I am here. On Earth. But I know that… that here, with you, I…”

The thing that didn’t let him finish to the same extent never let Martin even touch this matter. But he understood. And that was exactly why he didn’t ask him to finish. He didn’t have the right to ask.  

 

*******

 

Three weeks of this torture had passed. Another morning like any other – although it was past noon, Martin didn’t bother to check with his watch. What for, anyway? He wanted to take a bath, to dress into something ridiculous – for instance, that hideous leather dress that he so maniacally loved to take off in ’85.

He was sitting and staring out of the window at the sparrows jumping between the puddles. He fiddled with his unwashed hair, tugging it just enough for his scalp to begin burning. Not instantly he noticed that someone had entered the room.

Without saying hi, Alan sat down to the edge of the bed. His posture was so graceful. They looked at each other in silence, and all of a sudden Martin couldn’t take to stay here anymore. He stood up with resolve and started to take off his sweat-stained hospital pajamas.

“Are you this happy to see me?”

A web of a smile played in Alan’s sharp features, and Martin felt a mellow cloud of despair blooming in his chest. He didn’t know where to go, walked around the room only in his pajama bottoms. Alan watched him patiently, his dark-blue eyes following his every step.

Martin was shaking. Holding down a shout, he clutched his fists so hard that his nails sank into his skin, and halted in front of Alan. Their knees brushed.

“Did you come here to laugh at me?”

Alan held his gaze. It was strange how he could stay so calm. Martin wanted to yell, to cry, to hit him at the last.

“Why did you come?” 

His voice weakened, quieted down. With a deep sigh, Alan carefully, like a zoo keeper approaches a violent animal, took him by a wrist and pulled him down. Sitting next to him and sensing the familiar scent of his body that made cuts on his heart, Martin gave in. His head fell to Alan’s shoulder and, with anxious tenderness, he felt a soft touch of a hand on his arm.

“I came here with an offer,” Alan murmured. His thin lips moved slowly and steadily. “The next leg of the tour starts in two weeks, and we both know what it means.”

Martin was fighting the urge to blurt that he’d rather go on a three year tour than stay in this motherfucking ward for a day longer. But Alan regarded him with a look pleading to listen him out.

“Remember before the beginning of the tour you said we need a holiday? And…”

He hesitated. Martin’s insides turned cold.

“I still remember how we talked about this in Tokyo.”

“Don’t talk about Tokyo.”

He was surprised how harsh and decisive his voice was. But he just couldn’t indulge in such recollections now, unprepared and defenseless.  

“All right, I won’t.” Alan exhaled from his nostrils, twisted a brow. “Maybe this preamble is unnecessary. Can I simply ask you to go on a trip with me?”

With that, he reached to a pocket of his leather jacket, produced two glossy tickets and handed them to Martin.

“The Carribean… Never imagined you were so keen on beaches, Al.”

He was smiling with that dazzling smile of his which was impossible to resist. A spark of sweet anticipation ignited Martin’s insides. The tickets said that a mere month separated them from black celebration.

“That weekend is free, I got Kessler’s approval.” Alan cast his eyelashes. In the dusk of a rainy day his cheeks looked like pink porcelain. “So… do you want to go?”

“I do.”

What a great pleasure was to say this ‘I do’. It’s odd how sometimes life gains meaning in such mundane details. Odd how a promise from a certain person you most expect a promise from – no matter how silent, woven of subtle hints, ephemeral – the promise from this exact person all at once overflows your veins with a healing magical potion.

It was silly to deny that Martin was dying to stay together with Alan, away from the band, the gigs, stage workers, Suzanne and Jeri – just the two of them together, alone. It seemed like a dream from a parallel world that was close to become reality more than ever before.

Martin managed to get discharged ahead of the assigned date, and the Fairy Godmother who helped him to escape from this confinement happened to be none other than a certain Dutch workaholic. 

“Pack up, Mart, we’re filming _In Your Room_ ,” Anton said, chewing on his unlit cigarette: smoking was prohibited in the wards.

The venue oozed coldness, even though the shade of red on the curtains was warm. The armchair with handcuffs reminded an electrical chair. Dave Gahan, looking paler and thinner than usual in a black jacket that was too big for him, wouldn’t say a word and kept frowning. Andy politely inquired on Martin’s health and he, not less politely, answered that everything was fine, his eyes lingering on Andy’s wrists crossed with white lines.

The process of filming was draining, even though all they needed to do was to sit in the chair and picture slaves’ torment. On a break Anton poured them all some whiskey. Dave was chainsmoking, sinking his spider-like fingers into unwashed hair and scratching his scalp.

“Be honest,” Alan interrupted the mournful silence, “have you watched _Twin Peaks_?” 

Andy produced a high-pitched laugh. Anton smiled gently, like a father smiles at his too smart for his age older son.

“I thought the aesthetics would fit your style just right. And for a song like this–”

 A bang of a glass being dropped to the table made everyone turn their heads. Dave stood up, clenching and unclenching his fists. His right eye was twitching and his wrinkled forehead shined with a thick film of sweat.

“I’ll be right back,” he said shortly and ran off to the hall. Anton’s smile vanished at once, his eyes filling with lead of grief.

Nobody ever dared to voice what Anton said that moment. Everyone knew, everyone understood, but was afraid to say it, like the words could make reality implacable, to shatter the fragile bulb of hope into pieces.

“Guys, you do realize it’s your last tour, don’t you? And your last video?”

Andy’s lips became a thin white line. Alan tightened his fingers on his glass. Anton swept them with a heavy gaze and, receiving no reaction, placed a pack of cigarettes on the table. All the three band members reached to it at once.  

“I’d do anything to help Dave,” he said barely audibly, dropping his head.

“Nobody can help him as long as he keeps refusing help.”

Alan’s voice was iron, his jaw clenched tight. But Martin had no trouble catching a little note of regret and self-reproach in his tone. He couldn’t know for sure, but that treacherous rasp signaled one certain thing – Alan had tried. Alan talked to him, yelled at him, perhaps even fought him. And not once. He just didn’t make it public, didn’t flaunt his concerns regarding his once best friend who had chosen to throw his own life away. 

That momentous conversation wouldn't leave Martin's mind for a long while after. The next leg of the tour was no less successful but it was evident that each of them was on their limit and couldn’t bear this mental violence. Kessler even hired a tour psychotherapist, and although he didn’t say it was for Dave, everyone got it. Ironically, each of them but Dave visited him.

Martin fidgeted in a chair.

“You know, I’m actually not used to baring my soul to a stranger.”

“Mr. Gore, I’m a doctor,” spoke that seriously looking internee in horn-rimmed glasses. “I'd taken the oath. Please, don't think of me as of a person. Imagine you’re talking to a wall.”

Martin was biting his lips and smoking for a while before squeezing out that, well, he drank a lot. Hell a lot. So much that his blood composition had probably changed and he consisted of 90% alcohol and not water.

He didn’t feel a sense of remorse. He knew he needed it. That was why when the doctor expressionlessly asked him what he needed those knockout doses of alcohol for, Martin said with angelic simplicity:

“So not to think.”

And that was his one and only visit to that therapist. Andy, however, visited him religiously, at least once a week, and his stone face soon more or less regained color. He even smiled on stage sometimes, and clapped his hands with a bit more enthusiasm.

It happened at the Philadelphia show. At the airport and onwards Dave hadn’t spoken to anyone, and when he came out on stage even Martin understood that he sang and moved on his last legs. His moves were broken, breath fast and erratic, he couldn’t get enough air and wheezed into the mic. But the crowd roared. The monster continued to demand food. And Dave continued to feed it out of his hand, smiling through the obvious pain, touching himself, and the streams of his sweat in that obscure lighting looked like streams of blood.

Barely finishing _Everything Counts_ , Dave dropped to one knee. The mic fell off from his hands and tumbled to the edge of the stage with a terrible grating sound. Martin staggered back from the synthesizer – stiff with panic, he rooted to the ground. On his left, Alan dashed to the lower platform where the security had already surrounded Gahan's spread-eagled body.   

All that fuss in the dressing room, paramedics with a stretcher, dozens of people: it was impossible to reach Dave, even though Martin, Andy and Alan pushed their way with their elbows. Daryl showed up out of nowhere, grabbed them all in his arms and pushed them out back to the stage.

“Finish the gig! People are waiting, what are you thinking of?”

“That our friend is about to die?” Alan shouted at him, forcing himself back and trying to push Daryl away.

“Oh, what are you talking about, Al… Finish without him! Now!”

The lights were off on stage. Clamour was rolling through the venue; people shouted, wailed like wolves at the moon.

Andy sat down on a speaker and grasped his head. Martin stood next to him, not knowing what to do while Alan was walking in circles in front of them.

“So, what do we do now? Mart, you’ll have to sing.”

“I know.”

With a heavy sigh, Alan sank his fingers into his short hair. Suddenly his eyes flickered.

“Let’s play our song.”

Andy darted his eyes between them, baffled.

“ _Somebody_?” Martin mumbled, feeling a chill creeping down his spine.

“No, dimwit. _Death’s Door_.”

Of course. Of course it had to be _Death’s Door_ , how come it didn’t occur to him? Only Alan could come up with such bitter sarcasm.

Spotlights bathed them again, and Alan walked to the piano. Andy stood still in front of his synth. Gently taking the mic with one hand and lifting its wire high above his head with the other, Martin murmured into the darkness:

“To our dear friend.”

It seemed that Alan hadn’t ever played with such involvement before. It was like he really performed a funeral march for Dave; his shoulders were shaking, his neck about to burst with tension. Martin sang without feeling his limbs, and in his head pulsed thousands of sharp-edged daggers.

 

_I've been away too long_

_I know that it was wrong_

_But I'm coming home_

 

The beast cried. The beast mourned its leader. And, after the bow, all three ran off to the dressing room. Dave, of course, wasn’t there.


End file.
